The NIS Directive required Member States to designate competent authorities in the field of network and information security for inter alia monitoring compliance. Further central contact points as liaison offices for supranational cooperation and computer security incident response teams (CSIRTs) had to be designated. The CSIRTs collaborate in the CSIRTs Network “to contribute to developing confidence and trust between the Member States and to promote swift and effective operational cooperation”. In that forum, members are able to improve the handling of cross-border incidents, share information about risks and coordinate responses to specific incidents. Besides this inter-state cooperation, at Union level, a cooperation group was established to support and facilitate the strategic cooperation and the exchange of information among Member States.
The NIS 2.0 proposal expands cooperation between the national competent authorities to exchange information, while also expanding the tasks of the existing cooperation group and the CSIRT network. In addition to the two established cooperation networks, the proposal foresees the integration of a further network to deal with large-scale incidents that impact multiple Member States under its umbrella: The European cyber crises liaison organisation network (EU-CyCLONe). This network was launched in 2020 and aims to contribute to the implementation of the European Commission Blueprint for rapid emergency response in case of a large-scale cross-border cyber incident or crisis. It complements the pre-existing cooperation networks by linking the cooperation at technical CSIRTs) and policy level (NIS Cooperation Group).