On Friday 12 March EU Member States gave a relatively warm welcome to the new EU directive on the resilience of critical infrastructure, proposed by the Commission in December (see EUROPE 12624/2). However, they raised some questions about this, notably about the respect of subsidiarity and the potential additional burden for operators.
This was the first time that the text was discussed by ministers, in this case in a public session. Commissioner for Home Affairs Ylva Johansson said she was pleased with “the strong support” for her proposals.
The proposal for a Critical Entities Resilience (CER) Directive further extends the scope of the 2008 Directive on European Critical Infrastructure, which only deals with terrorist attacks. 10 sectors would be covered by the new directive: energy, transport, banking services, financial market infrastructure, health, drinking water, waste water, digital infrastructure, public administration and space.
Each Member State will be required to put in place a national strategy and the Commission will evaluate them.
Some twenty Member States have spoken out to welcome the proposal’s ambition to improve the protection of these types of infrastructure, but Ireland, for example, has voiced its concerns about creating new overloads. The country is also considering whether it is appropriate to include public administrations.
Belgium and the Czech Republic insisted in particular on respect for the principle of subsidiarity, with Prague asking to be allowed to wait for the opinion of the EU Council’s legal service on this point before going any further. Other countries, such as France, have asked for respect of the proper relationship between the European level and national prerogatives in this area.
It was also recalled that this directive should be studied in parallel with the new directive on network security, also presented on 16 December (see EUROPE 12624/1), as the two tools go hand in hand. (Original version in French by Solenn Paulic)