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Belgium to join NATO CCDCE

The Estonia-based NATO Cooperative Cyber Defence Centre of Excellence (CCDCE)  has just played a major role in Cyber Coalition 2015, NATO's largest cyber-defence exercise which was held this week with participation most NATO nations and several partners.

The exercise ‘storyline' was handled by national representatives and the CCDCE core planning team in Tartu, Estonia with a focus on the decision-making processes as well as technical, operational and legal procedures.

“This year, we contributed the main technical storyline dealing with the emerging threat of mobile malware as well as two popular legal storylines dealing with questions such as privacy, classified information sharing, human rights and applicability of international conventions,” said Lt Col Christian Braccini, an expert at the NATO CCDCE.

Separately, Belgium now plans to join the NATO CCDCE as a Sponsoring Nation and began accession negotiations last week.

“Belgium is a key contributor to European cyber-security. In addition to hosting several international institutions, they are fundamental to several cyber-defence cooperation efforts in NATO and the European Union,” said Sven Sakkov, director of the NATO CCDCE. He highlighted the importance of Belgium becoming a full-fledged member of the Centre, welcoming Belgium's decision and expressed hopes for “an expeditious accession process.”

“Cyber Defence is a top priority of the Belgian Government,“ said Colonel Gunther De Kerpel with  Major Jeff Vandromme from the Strategic Affairs Department of the Belgian Defence Staff adding: “Belgian Defence will very soon add deeds to words by sending a proficient cyber-defence specialist to Tallinn”.

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