An EU candidate country since 2012, Serbia is an important partner in the Western Balkans. The 2020 iteration of the Digital Evolution Scorecard
characterised Serbia as a ‘break out’ economy,
meaning that despite a relative lack of digital infrastructure the country is rapidly digitalising; internet penetration is one of the highest across the region,
standing at 79%. Over the past decade, Serbia’s digital policy has been focused on attracting foreign investment, deepening the digital transformation across the public and private sectors, and promoting economic growth in line with EU targets. These objectives have been operationalised through a series of strategies, notably the
Strategy for the Development of Information Security for the period 2017-2020 and the
Strategy for combat against cyber crime 2019-2023. The ITU
notes, however, that “while innovative, internet-based e-commerce is expected to bring significant growth and development, obsolete legislation and a lack of harmonisation with EU standards and best practice persist, hampering progress”. As the country becomes increasingly more digitalised, the challenge for Serbian cyber diplomacy will be to develop and enhance avenues of European, regional, and international cooperation.
An EU candidate country since 2014, Albania has been eagerly embracing its digital revolution with the government ushering in an array of cyber and digital policy initiatives. In recent years, Albania has worked on adapting its legal framework to comply with the EU’s
acquis communautaire and further approach the Digital Single Market. The Albanian policy framework ranks 1
st across the Western Balkans region in fostering the inclusivity and competitiveness of digital society [
x], while the country currently ranks 80
th in the Global Security Index [
x]. An OECD report
praised Albania for enhancing intragovernmental cooperation, emphasising the cross-cutting character of ICT in its development strategies, and allocating resources towards the implementation of its digital strategy. Despite the proliferation of such policies, however, the country is currently the 5
th largest source of cybercrime in Europe, suffering at least 1.3 million cyberattacks yearly [
x]. As such, modernising cybercrime legislation and upgrading critical infrastructure protection constitute key priorities for Albanian policymakers.
South Korea has made significant progress over the last decades when it comes to connectivity and is currently one of the leading states in terms of access and use of ICTs. While in 1995 less than one percent of Koreans used the internet, four years later the country passed the developed nation average and nowadays South Korea is a global leader in the field of connectivity and internet access. Government support for internet access has been instrumental in fostering this progress in connectivity through governmental programs, trainings and low interest loans to companies providing broadband access. Consequently, cyber issues were recognised as important to the bilateral relationship at the EU-South Korea Summit in 2015, and five cyber dialogues have taken place between 2015 and 2020.
