From: DefenseNews

BRUSSELS — Lithuania, the current holder of the EU’s rotating presidency, wants EU leaders meeting at a summit here in December to begin updating the EU’s 10-year-old security strategy by, among other things, including cybersecurity and energy security.

It also wants to see the decline in Europe’s defense spending and EU partnerships in security and defense addressed at the summit.

“Over the past 10 years, the world outside Europe has become more unsafe, more volatile and more radical. Meanwhile, Europe itself has become more introverted, politically less ambitious and militarily less able to deal with emerging security challenges, even in neighboring territories,”  Lithuanian Defense Minister Juozas Olekas told members of the European Parliament in a speech Monday.

“In the review of the strategy, Europeans will need to think well beyond the problems in our vicinity. We cannot ignore the fact that the US, which over decades was deploying considerable forces in Western Europe will, in the future, focus increasingly on other parts of the world.” Olekas said. “Therefore, Europe will need to rethink its global role, including the role of military force within its strategy.”

He added that cybersecurity and energy security “are conspicuous by their absence in the current strategy,” and yet “are the ones which are currently the most pressing for Lithuania and a number of other European countries.”

NATO has a Cyber Defence Centre of Excellence in Tallinn, Estonia, and an Energy Security Centre in Vilnius, Lithuania.

“The establishment of these centers is a reflection of the growing security threats in our region and beyond,” he said.

Olekas said he wants to see EU leaders discuss cybersecurity and energy security issues in greater depth at the EU summit in December.

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