The aim of the conference was to exchange good practices and experiences between the EU member states and others regarding strengthening the cyber resilience of the critical infrastructure on the Digital Single Market in the event of cyberattacks. The participants focused on managing cyber crises in the EU, cyber diplomacy and cybersecurity in the Western Balkans.

Minister Koritnik emphasised that cyber resilience was a very important topic of the national and international political programmes as the COVID-19 epidemic expedited the digital transformation in many fields, especially in sales, education and healthcare. "Slovenia places strategic importance on strengthening cyber capacities in the EU neighbourhood, especially in the Western Balkans. We will have to work together to better protect societies from malicious cyber activities," the Minister stressed, adding that over the last three years a number of activities have been carried out in the region to strengthen the competencies of cyber security experts. The Slovenian Computer Emergency Response Team (SI-CERT) has also played a key role in this process.

Directors, ambassadors and cybersecurity advisors from EU Member States and the Western Balkans, including Juhan Lepassaar, the Executive Director of the European Union Agency for Cybersecurity (ENISA) and Lorena Boix, Director for Digital Society, Trust and Cybersecurity of the European Commission, participated at six panels organised during the conference. Also taking part were representatives of companies and the academic and research community, as well as public employees. They stressed the importance of additional financing to combat cyber threats, strengthening the cooperation between member states and the need to establish regional cyber incident response centres.