After long months of discussions and negotiations the economic and financial committee of the European Parliament voted on a text which finalises the parliamentary draft for a European regulation labelled as Dora. The regulation will introduce new and detailed measures by which EU banks and financial institutions will have to safeguard their digital systems from all attacks and corrosive breakdowns.

I was responsible for the preparatory work that went into the draft law from the socialist side and learnt quite a lot from it. Up to now, many of the measures in this area that were in force basically specified what proportion of their available funds financial institutions needed to allocate to digital resilience. This is no longer quite enough to mobilise adequate protection against the ever rising wave of digital attacks. It was interesting how one of the examples that the European Commission mentioned repeatedly in this context was the digital robbery carried out at the Bank of Valletta some two years ago.

The Dora draft which now needs to be approved by the Parliament’s plenary will have to be contrasted with the text finalised by the Council of Ministers. On the basis of these two texts, one regulation should emerge. It’s a complicated technical and political task, in which ideology has little say.

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CHIAROSCURO

During recent months, adapting to the use of Dora as a nickname for the draft “European Regulation of the European Parliament and of the Council on digital operational resilience for the financial sector” was a strange experience for me. Certainly using Dora by which to refer to the document, rather than by its full title, was an easier and more pleasant exercise. But the name used to -- still does -- remind me of a character in a play “Kjaro Skuro” I wrote a long time ago, which was then put on by the Moviment Qawmien Letterarju.

The play featured three characters with Dora as a fourth person who is much mentioned but never makes an appearance.

And now I will be associating her name much more closely with electronic technology and the required resilience to guard against digital fraud. Perhaps it’s best like that.

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AS XMAS APPROACHES...

The disquiet has become palpable among ordinary citizens at how, as the Christmas holidays approach, so too apparently does the Covid-19 virus armed with its new Omicron weapon. Will it again disrupt the good cheer that Christmas should be bringing along, like it did last year?

It is true that the media did their bit to help spread the disquiet. Their stories about Omicron multiplied, as with the BBC’s TV programmes... and these were of course far from being the only ones.

The truth is that sentiments of fatigue and impatience with the whole pandemic issue have been growing. Almost all governments have felt the importance of keeping up their warnings and the anti-Covid precautions and measures that need to be followed, but they have also been careful to complement such instructions with tips and information about how the coming festivities could still be enjoyed. Are they being too optimistic in this, or are they showing an awareness of the need to contain the feelings of helplessness that many people could end up with?