24 April 2012 (BNS)

The Dutch flag was raised at the NATO Cooperative Cyber Defense Center of Excellence (CCD COE) in Tallinn on Tuesday, marking the accession of the Netherlands to the CCD COE.

Estonian President Toomas Hendrik Ilves said in his remarks after the flag-raising he was sincerely pleased that the Netherlands was joining the CCD COE and the center itself kept growing.

Estonia and the Netherlands are among the most active cyber states in NATO, who emphasize the importance of stepping up cooperation and ambition. The two countries are also among the frontrunners in the availability of e-services internationally, the president said, expressing hope that the value that the Netherlands gets from the center and the center and the alliance get from Dutch expertise will be big, spokespeople for the CCD COE said.

The notes formalizing the Netherlands' membership of CCD COE were signed at Supreme Allied Command Transformation in Norfolk, USA, at the beginning of this month.

The Netherlands is the third country to join the center in the last six months, following Poland and the USA which joined in November 2011.

The Netherlands became the 11th member of the CCD COE alongside Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Germany, Hungary, Italy, Poland, Slovakia, Spain and the United States. Each sponsoring nation sends their experts to work at the center and contributes to the shared budget.