Early 2013 will see both new legislation, which is aimed at preventing and countering cross-border cyber incidents and promoting a new minimum standard of cyber-preparedness at a national level, and the commencement of operations of the new European Cybercrime Centre, a part of Europol based in The Hague. According to the EUobserver, “the new legislation is being piloted by the EU digital agenda commissioner Neelie Kroes, who announced the plans in a paper on Digital Priorities for 2013-14,” that was published in late December.  The article also included a quote from a spokesperson for the commissioner who said “that the text was about recognizing that digital freedoms and digital security go hand-in-hand – they had to be balanced and dealt with together.”

In a press conference, also reported by the EUobserver, Kroes talked to the need for the European Union to “up its game in utilizing new technologies such as high speed internet and cloud computing.” She warned that the EU “is not positioning itself well enough to benefit from digital developments.” The Kroes paper also notes, “At a time when over 20 percent of European’s under-25s are out of work, by 2015, 700,000 to 1 million high-quality ICT [information and communication technology] jobs will not be filled. If (it was) not for the digital economy then the EU would be in an even deeper recession.”