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PESCO: Switzerland will be invited to participate in the 'Cyber Ranges Federations' project

European Council / Council of the European Union

Council of the EU
Press release
20 May 2025 11:15

The Council adopted today a decision confirming that the participation of Switzerland in the PESCO project 'Cyber Ranges Federations' meets the general conditions set out in Decision (CFSP) 2020/1639 of November 2020, and will bring substantial added value and mutual benefit to the project, given its work developing the Swiss Cyber Training Range and Cyber-Defence Campus.

Today's decision authorises Estonia as project coordinator to formally invite Switzerland to join this PESCO project, in response to Switzerland's request of October 2024. Once Switzerland completes an administrative agreement with the project, they will become formal members.

The PESCO project 'Cyber Ranges Federations' aims to develop sophisticated and powerful platforms for cyber training purposes. They are virtual environments used for cybersecurity and cyberwarfare training, simulation or emulation, and development of technologies related to cybersecurity.

The primary objective is to enhance the project members' Ranges capabilities by centralising existing national Cyber Ranges into a larger cluster with more capacity and unique services. Furthermore, the project aims to share the research and development of the national Cyber Ranges to facilitate standardization between the Cyber Ranges. This enhances interoperability of services and increases sophistication of automated processes, while reducing the manual labour currently performed during cybersecurity training, exercise, testing, validation, and experimentation.

Background

The Permanent Structured Cooperation (PESCO) is one of the pillars of EU Defence Policy. It provides a framework for defence cooperation among the 26 participating EU member states who have entered into more binding commitments between one another. They jointly develop defence capabilities, coordinate investments, enhance the operational readiness, interoperability and resilience of their armed forces, and collaborate in projects.

On 5 November 2020, the Council adopted Decision (CFSP) 2020/1639 establishing the general conditions under which third states could exceptionally be invited to participate in individual PESCO projects. The countries applying must meet political, legal, and substantive conditions, including sharing the values on which the EU is founded and not contravene the security and defence interests of the EU and its member states.