The European Council voted on 9 December 2020 to designate Romania, and specifically its capital, Bucharest, as the future headquarters of the new European Cybersecurity Industrial, Technology and Research Competence Centre (ECCC), which will start operating in 2021. The new European Cybersecurity Competence Centre will operate separately from the European Union Agency for Network and Information Security (ENISA) , the EU 's official agency in the field of cybersecurity.
While ENISA will focus on standards, the European Council stated that the ECCC will be the EU's main instrument for mobilising investments earmarked for research, technological and industrial development in the field of cybersecurity.
Although not an official EU agency, the European Cybersecurity Competence Center will fund new research in the field of cybersecurity, provide financial support and technical assistance to start-ups and small and medium-sized enterprises in cyberspace, and promote cybersecurity standards.
The new Cybersecurity Competence Centre is part of the EU's focus on strengthening its digital market. Under the new Digital Europe programme, the EU intends to allocate over €2 billion to cybersecurityfrom its budget for the years 2021-2027.
It is worth mentioning that seven countries have applied to host the new cybersecurity research center. The list of applicants includes Bucharest (Romania), Brussels (Belgium), Munich (Germany), León (Spain), Vilnius (Lithuania), Warsaw (Poland) and Luxembourg.
Representatives of the governments of the EU member states chose Bucharest as the host for the new service in two rounds of voting on Wednesday, December 9. Specifically, Bucharest was chosen in Brussels in a vote of 15-12 in the final round.
All applicants had strong arguments to convince the EU to choose them. For example, the Lithuanian delegation offered to host the ECCC in the famous Vilnius TV Tower, one of the tallest buildings in the world.
At the same time, León offered to host the European Cybersecurity Competence Center in its huge former train station and also relied on the fact that it was designated as Spain's cybersecurity center and already hosts a high- performance computing center .
Furthermore, Brussels used its proximity to other institutions to promote its bid, but this ultimately proved to be a weak point, as Romanian officials used the fact that Romania had been denied the opportunity to host any EU institution or centre since joining the EU in 2007 as a primary point to secure a successful vote in the final round.
Bucharest also promoted its growing IT, with the city already hosting many cybersecurity companies for decades, while offering to allow the EU to choose to host the European Cybersecurity Competence Center in one of the following three buildings:
- a classic villa in the old center of Bucharest,
- a modern office tower or
- a typical government building near the government institutions of Bucharest.
