A public-private partnership between industry and the European Commission is expected to generate €1.8 billion in investment in cybersecurity initiatives by 2020.

The agreement signed on Tuesday aims to foster cooperation at early stages of the research process and to build cybersecurity solutions for sectors such as energy, health, transport and finance.

The commission said the EU would invest €450 million in the partnership under its research and innovation programme Horizon 2020.

Cybersecurity players, represented by the European Cyber Security Organisation (ECSO), are expected to invest three times that.

The deal is part of a series of new initiatives to better equip Europe against cyber attacks and to strengthen the competitiveness of the cybersecurity sector, the commission said.

Incidents

It said a recent survey by PwC suggested at least 80 per cent of European companies had experienced at least one cybersecurity incident over the last year and that the number of security incidents across all industries worldwide rose by 38 per cent in 2015.

This damaged European companies and threatened to undermine trust in the digital economy.

Vice president for the Digital Single Market, Andrus Ansip, said there could be no digital single market without trust and security.

“Europe has to be ready to tackle cyber-threats that are increasingly sophisticated and do not recognise borders.”

Commissioner for the Digital Economy and Society Günther H Oettinger said Europe needed high quality, affordable and interoperable cybersecurity products and services.

“There is a major opportunity for our cybersecurity industry to compete in a fast-growing global market. We call on member states and all cybersecurity bodies to strengthen cooperation and pool their knowledge, information and expertise to increase Europe’s cyber resilience. The milestone partnership on cybersecurity signed today with the industry is a major step.”

Directive

The commission called on member states to make the most of new mechanisms in the Network and Information Security Directive, which is expected to be adopted by the European Parliament on Wednesday.

The directive creates a network of computer security incident response teams across the EU in order to rapidly react to cyber threats and incidents.

Market

Separately, Minister of State for the Digital Single Market Dara Murphy said a fully functioning, open and competitive digital single market would be a "win-win for consumers and SMEs" across Europe.

It would allow Ireland to unlock its full potential as a "digital frontrunner" as the economy and society embraced ever-greater digitisation, he said.

Mr Murphy was speaking following the 'Digitising Ireland' event hosted by Google on Tuesday. He said the Government would continue to work closely with its EU partners to ensure "swift and determined progress in completing the Digital Single Market by 2018".

At the event, Boston Consulting Group (BCG) presented research estimating that up to 140,000 jobs could be created in the Irish economy over the next four years and annual GDP growth almost doubled, if Ireland seized emerging opportunities in digital.