Enisa breaks free of Brussels red tape

The European Network and Information Security Agency (Enisa) has cleared a hurdle of political red tape to further cement its growing reputation as a body serving the high-tech interests of European business.

Enisa, based in Heraklion, Greece, had been the subject of legal wranglings between the European Court of Justice and the United Kingdom, which placed a legal challenge relating to the establishment of the Agency in 2004 on the basis of Article 95 of the EC Treaty.

The UK opposed the single market clause of Article 95 which allows for the adoption of EC-wide rules and regulations by a qualified majority in the Council of Europe. The UK, while it actually offered support for the work of Enisa, said such decisions should be ratified unanimously.

However, today the European Court of Justice threw out the UK challenge.

And while talk of specific Articles may seem of little relevance to anybody outside Brussels' corridors of power, the flurry of bureaucracy has brought the Agency into the spotlight and earned it glowing praise from Viviane Reding, commissioner for information society and media, for the work it is doing.

Reding said: "I am particularly glad that today's ruling also gives legal certainty to the staff of Enisa in Greece, which I visited three weeks ago and whose valuable work I saw with my own eyes. I intend to make Enisa a key element of the Commission's future work on network and IT security."

Enisa will undergo a review of its operations ahead of a 2009 deadline, by which time its future will be decided. A spokesman for the organisation told silicon.com the ruling "gives us more confidence that we're doing the right thing".