Twenty years after breaking free of the dying USSR, Azerbaijan has become an active member of the international community. Rich in oil and gas and a major stakeholder in regional affairs, Azerbaijan continues to face challenges with its neighbours, in particular over energy policy, sovereignty issues in the Caspian sea, and the Armenia-Azerbaijan conflict. How could the shifting balance of power in the region affect Western interests there? Can bilateral relations between Europe and NATO members with Azerbaijan and its neighbours promote stability in the region? How successful have Caucasus countries been in coordinating their policies towards the EU and NATO?
With international trade representing between a fifth and a quarter of the world’s total estimated annual GDP of $60 trillion, it’s widely feared that transport is increasingly the Achilles Heel of the global economy. Has the EU got the right balance between tighter rules and their practical enforcement? How can Europe effectively harmonise the efforts of security, transport and customs authorities? How can policymakers in Europe and further afield ensure that the long-term evolution of threats is being properly taken into account? Do Washington and Brussels have a shared approach to ensuring that rogue states enforce security procedures?
The SDA is a proud partner of the 2011 Defence Conference. This year's conference, held in Warsaw, will focus on research and development issues in European defence.
The European Defence Conference (EDC) aims to foster cooperation in the defence and security sector between private companies, knowledge institutes, governments and international organizations. The conference format provides opportunities for discussion on policy and procedures, briefing of practical technical results and proposals for future cooperation. Speakers and audience range from European politicians to national government authorities and from researchers to multinational industry representatives.
For more information please visit www.defenceconference.eu. You can also contact the conference office by email defenceconference@eventlab.org.
Intelligence, counter-terrorism and private security stakeholders all rely on the timely and accurate delivery of information to “front-line” staff. In most major security breaches, although relevant data was available it failed to reach the right person in time. Information-sharing to reduce vulnerabilities is vital, so why has intra-European cooperation remained so limited? Do EU and NATO member states mistrust each other when dealing with sensitive security information, or is it security sector rivalries that obstruct cooperation? The Lisbon treaty is meant to unify EU security policies, but coherence on information-sharing remains elusive. How can Europe better harness its information-sharing resources?
As NATO troops start to pull out of the ISAF mission, the focus of attention will be on what happens next and how prepared the Afghan army and police are to take charge of security. The NATO training mission that has been in place since 2009 has planned for an independent Afghan security force by 2014, but can this target be maintained with fewer NATO boots on the ground? Beyond the Afghan army and police, are the country’s civil institutions ready for greater responsibility? How much are civil society actors becoming empowered to take charge and what programmes are currently in place? Has cooperation between NATO, civilian government actors and NGOs now begun to prove satisfactory, and could a “civilian surge” combat the poor governance and corruption that are said to still be undermining the country’s stabilisation efforts?
A United States Mission to the European Union and Security and Defence Agenda lunch discussion with Ivan K. Fong, General Counsel and Mary Ellen Callahan, Chief Privacy Officer and Chief Freedom of Information Act Officer from the US Department of Homeland Security.
The event will be moderated by Brooks Tigner, Editor, Security Europe.
The so-called ‘Twitter’ or ‘Web 2.0’ revolutions in the Arab world have sparked fierce debate on the right of governments to shut down the internet. This has been paralleled by criticism of Iran and China for their use of social media to track political protesters and for propaganda. The storage of data on these platforms greatly increases public and private vulnerabilities to attack. Does switching off the internet constitute a breach of freedom of speech, and if so, should the EU develop capabilities to prevent this? Does NATO’s cybersecurity policy include this issue and what kind of actions or sanctions might be considered? Could an EU platform for cooperation between public and private actors contribute to regulating cyberspace, and could such a platform enable governments to stay up to speed with technological developments?
In a wide-ranging discussion, the distinguished panel gave participants an insight to the complex process of coordinating responses to new security challenges. Varied topics such as cyber, critical infrastructure protection and terrorism were the main focus, with numerous specific challenges elaborated. Yet ultimately, as Richard Wright, Director for Conflict Prevention and Security Policy in the European External Action Service stated, the “cross-border and cross-sectoral nature of these challenges” means that “getting in step must include the development of a closer commonality of approaches” then exists today.
Europe's public authorities need to reach out to the private sector to help develop effective responses to today's increasingly complex security threats, the European Union's Counter-Terrorism Coordinator Gilles De Kerchove said Thursday. "We public authorities should do better to identify and make known our needs in the field of security related research," De Kerchove told a conference, co-organised by Security & Defence Agenda and European Organisation for Security. "If Ministries of Interior don't express their views, it's very difficult for the researchers and mainly for the private industry to invest." The conference focused on four main areas of concern: border security, disaster control and civil protection, cyber-security and protecting transport infrastructure. Speakers assessed the need to reduce the fragmentation of Europe's approach to security, examined the role of European institutions and examined ways to dovetail the needs of industry and government.
Cyberattacks in Europe and across the globe are at an all-time high and showing no signs of abating. Remote hijacking of computers for malicious purposes constitute an “electronic epidemic”. Faced with such rapid technological upheaval, European policymakers seem slow to react. During this high level policymakers debate, Mario Campolargo, Director for Emerging Technologies and Infrastructures, European Commission, Craig Mundie, Chief Research and Strategy Officer, Microsoft and Jamie Shea, Deputy Assistant Secretary General, Emerging Security Challenges Division, North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (NATO) contributed their views on this increasingly important topic.
Speaking to an assembly of distinguished guests from across the Brussels security and defence community, General Stéphane Abrial, Commander of NATO’s Supreme Allied Command Transformation, discussed the challenges of force transformation in the current fiscal climate, a challenge he said was “not impossible, it just looks like it”.
Natural disasters, terrorist attacks and geopolitical instability, all pose threats to Europe's critical energy infrastructure that could prove disastrous, provoking a cascade effect that could strike other sectors from water supply to the mobile phone network, heard an SDA / EOS roundtable debate. Speakers stressed the need for more investment, closer European co-operation and the development of a more integrated European market that would facilitate flows of energy from one country to another, especially in times of crisis.