The applicants are proposing an overall investment of more than 25.4 million euros to improve their operational capabilities in cybersecurity, of which 18.7 million euros have been requested to be co-financed by the European Union from a budget envelope of 10 million euro for this call.
The strong demand for EU support, like for the previous call, confirms the recognition of the challenges by EU Member States related in building up their cybersecurity capabilities. All together, the European Union has invested to-date through the Connecting Europe Facility (CEF) programme more than €29.4 million (EU contribution for 3 calls) in 57 projects since 2016 to strengthen the European Union's capacity, cross border cooperation and deal more efficiently with cyber-threats and incidents.
For this call, EU has received the following requested grant amounts for the following 5 main objectives:
- 2.7 million euro funding to for Computer Security Incident Response Teams (CSIRTs)
- 10.3 million euro funding for Operators of Essential Services (OES) Information Sharing and Analysis Centers (ISACs)
- 1.8 million euro funding for National Competent Authorities (NCAs) & SPOCs
- 3.0 million euro funding for MS XCross-Border Cooperation
- 0.8 million euro funding for National cybersecurity certifications bodies
We can observe a strong request from the industry to increase their capabilities. In particular, the Operators of Essential Services (OES) such as electricity and gas companies, airports, water distribution providers for cybersecurity are among those requesting funding.
In addition, it is the first time that EU is providing financial support under the CEF programme to broader categories of stakeholders such as cybersecurity certifications bodies in order to support the implementation of the part of the EU Cybersecurity Act related to the EU cybersecurity certification framework for ICT products, services and processes .
The related proposals will now be evaluated with those successful being foreseen to be signed by August of next year.
EU will continue investing in strengthening cybersecurity through CEF. In 2020, a further call is expected to be launched.
This call was part of the 2019-2 call in support of European Digital Service Infrastructures in the areas of Cybersecuirty, eHealth , eProcurement, European e-Justice, European Platform for Digital Skills and Jobs and the Pubglic Open Data.
More information
CEF Cybersecurity call - infographic
CEF Telecom supported actions - brochure