On Tuesday 22 November, the European Parliament adopted new rules to better protect the EU’s critical infrastructure by adopting, by 595 votes to 17 with 24 abstentions, the report by Slovak Michal Šimečka (Renew Europe).
With this vote, MEPs confirmed an agreement reached with the EU Council in June on this new directive revising an earlier text from 2008 (see EUROPE 12981/11). The directive aims to prepare the EU’s critical infrastructure (in transport, energy or health) for attacks not only related to terrorism, but also to natural disasters or sabotage, as the Nord Stream gas pipelines have recently shown.
The directive obliges Member States to introduce risk assessment plans and national resilience strategies in 11 key sectors - namely energy, transport, banking, financial market infrastructure, digital infrastructure, water and wastewater, food (including production, processing and delivery), health, public administration and space.
Under the new rules, Member States will have to set up dedicated contact points for cross-border communication. The players in these infrastructures will have to notify the national authorities of any incidents or problems.
In a debate on the subject on Tuesday morning, the rapporteur said that the new rules were more urgent than ever in view of the war in Ukraine. The new directive will also enable the EU to “deliver on its promise” to protect European citizens, with the rapporteur listing the number of successive crises that have tested the EU’s critical infrastructure - from the health crisis to the war in Ukraine, to the climate crisis. These crises have served as a “compass” for legislators, he added.
For her part, Commissioner for Home Affairs Ylva Johansson called on Member States to “be ready now” and not just in 2 years’ time, when the deadline for transposing the new directive passes. “We will defend ourselves and not be intimidated by acts of sabotage and we will do so thanks to this agreement”, she added.
Link to the text: https://aeur.eu/f/46f (Original version in French by Solenn Paulic)