Ways to develop digital skills and the needs in the field of cyber security were underlined by the Deputy Minister of Research, Innovation and Digital Policy Kyriakos Kokkinos, during his participation in the Transport, Telecommunications and Energy Council of the European Union (composed of Ministers of Telecommunications), in Brussels on Tuesday. As examples he cited the development of funding programs with a focus on digital skills, the modernization of education, as well as the deepening of cooperation with industry.
As he underlined, cyber security should be a priority as there is currently a shortage of 200,000 experts in this field in Europe. Mr. Kokkinos also informed his counterparts about the approval of the National Action Plan for Digital Skills which Cyprus approved in 2021 in the context of promoting the goals at the European level for the digital decade.
During the during a working lunch, the 27 ministers exchanged views on the Union's open strategic autonomy and digital supply chains.
In his intervention, Mr. Kokkinos noted that strategic autonomy should be a key objective of the EU and particularly highlighted the need to reduce strategic dependencies and increase resilience, maintaining openness and global cooperation with partners who share the same principles and values .
In this context, he referred to Cyprus' support for the European initiative in relation to the Global Gateway Strategy, which aims to strengthen the security of global infrastructure and supply chains in third countries.< /p>
The Council also adopted negotiating positions (general approaches) on two pieces of legislation, namely the Regulation on Harmonized Rules on Artificial Intelligence and on the European Digital Identity (eID) which provides for a requirement to issue a European digital identity by the member states on the basis of common technical standards.
Expressing Cyprus's support for the two proposals, Mr. Kokkinos referred to the National Artificial Intelligence Strategy and the implementation of the National Electronic Identity and Digital Wallet Plan in the country.
The Deputy Minister of European Affairs of the Ministry of Digital Transformation of Ukraine, Valeria Ionan, also participated in the meeting via video conference.
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