National representatives of ten nations already members of the NATO Cooperative Cyber Defence Centre of Excellence (NATO CCD COE), signed the notes of joining at NATO’s Supreme Allied Command Transformation, located in Norfolk (USA), welcoming the Netherlands as the newest member to the Centre. The Netherlands is a third country to join the Centre in the last 6 months, following Poland and USA which joined in November last year.
“It is our utmost honour to greet the Netherlands as the newest member to the Centre,” said the Director of the NATO CCD COE, Colonel Ilmar Tamm. “I see the Netherlands’ decision as recognition of the work done in the Centre and I believe Dutch participation will further enhance the Centre’s efforts and will be of mutual benefit to both NATO and the Netherlands in working toward the common goal of enhancing cyber defence cooperation.”
The Netherlands Ambassador to Estonia, Mr Maurits Jochems said that he is proud and very content that his country is now on a daily basis effectively participating in the work of the Centre. “There is no need to elaborate extensively on the importance, even the necessity of doing serious work on enhancing cyber security for our countries,” he added. “In my view it is equally obvious that such security, certainly in the field of cyber, can only be assured through good international cooperation.”
The ambassador is convinced that the Netherlands’ participation in the Centre is a very positive development, both for the Netherlands and for the other NATO Allies. “The Netherlands’ active participation demonstrates once again our commitment to NATO and at the same time makes yet another contribution to the strengthening of the bilateral relations between The Netherlands and Estonia,” Mr Jochems concluded.
With the Netherlands as a Sponsoring Nation, the number of nations actively participating in the work of the Centre is eleven. As a Sponsoring Nation, each nation sends their experts to work in the Centre and each nation also contributes to the shared budget. In addition to the newly joined Netherlands, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Germany, Hungary, Italy, Poland, Slovakia, Spain and USA are taking part of the Centre.
NATO Cooperative Cyber Defence Centre of Excellence is one of many NATO Centres of Excellence. Its mission is to enhance the capability, cooperation and information sharing among NATO, its member nations and partners in cyber defence by virtue of education, research and development, lessons learned and consultation.