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President Ilves: we need a digital security organisation of democratic countries

01.06.2016

President Toomas Hendrik Ilves opened the international CyCon conference of the NATO Cooperative Cyber Defence Centre of Excellence; this year, the conference will focus on power within cyber space.

The Estonian Head of State, who set out the improvement of cyber security both at home and among allies as one of his goals during his ten years in office, invited everyone to consider a new type of thinking that involves all democratic countries joining a digital security organisation, regardless of their geographic location.

"Nine years later, on the eve of the Warsaw summit, just as an example of how much attitudes have changed, we anticipate NATO to name "cyber" as the fifth domain of warfare, after Land, Sea, Air and Space. That in some way shows how much thinking has changed in less than a decade," emphasised President Ilves.

Such a new type of thinking will also influence NATO and transatlantic defence, where Japan, South Korea, Australia should definitely be our allies in the anticipation and prevention of cyber threats, he said.

"All countries, with no geographical limit, could join the digital security organisation," repeated President Ilves.

He invited the parties involved to engage in closer co-operation between the private and public sector in cyber space, in a situation where the hardware and software of international corporations is in global use, while security has remained national and is restricted by state borders.

Membership of NATO Cooperative Cyber Defence Centre is open to all the allied states of the alliance. Estonia, Spain, Holland, Italy, Greece, Lithuania, Latvia, Poland, France, Germany, Slovakia, the Czech Republic, Turkey, Hungary, USA and the United Kingdom are the sponsor states of the Centre; Austria and Finland have joined as partner states. The Centre is funded and staffed by member states and it is not a part of NATO's military organisation.

Full text of the speech of the President of the Republic is available at: https://www.president.ee/en/official-duties/speeches/12281-president-toomas-hendrik-ilvess-opening-speech-at-cycon-in-tallinn-on-june-1-2016/index.html

Office of the President
Public Relations Department