The MISWG meeting in Krakow

In the period 09 - 10 September 2004 in Krakow, Poland a regular meeting was held of the Multinational Industrial Security Working Group (MISWG) including representatives of the NATO nations, Austria, Sweden and Switzerland. Invited as observers, representatives of the European Commission of the European Union and NATO Office of Security took part in the meeting.

From the Bulgarian side representatives of the State Commission on Information Security, Ministry of Defence and Service “Security Military Police and Military Counterintelligence” participated in the meeting.

MISWG is an informal initiative, created in 1985 by the NATO member nations. The necessity of creating a working group in the field of Industrial security is a result of the fact that it is a field of the national legislation of the member nations which is not harmonized and there are criteria and requirements needing unification. The aim of MISWG is to work out common measures for classified information protection and certain non-classified information. The aspects of the activities of MISWG include multinational initiatives (programmes, projects) and issues in the field of defence and international Industrial security out of the NATO context. The above mentioned determines the role of MISWG basically to achieve common practices and security procedures for the exchange of classified and non-classified information.

In the National report of the Republic of Bulgaria, presented at the meeting an accent was made on the change in the competent authorities in the field of industrial security, the preparation of the amendments in the Classified Information Protection Act, concerning industrial security and the appeal procedure of denials and withdrawals of Facility Security Clearances.

The next regular meeting of MISWG will be in September 2005 in Lucerne, Switzerland.