While the Swedish authorities announced, on Friday 21 February, that they were conducting an investigation following the discovery of another damaged cable in the Baltic Sea, the European Commission and the High Representative for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy, Kaja Kallas, presented a joint action plan to protect submarine cables and strengthen the resilience of this critical infrastructure.
Communication cables link several Member States to one another, connect islands to the European mainland and connect the EU to the rest of the world, carrying 99% of intercontinental Internet traffic, the two institutions point out. Submarine electricity cables, notably interconnectors, also allow for the integration of Member States’ electricity markets, strengthen their security of supply and bring offshore renewable energy to shore.
Presented in Helsinki, on Baltic Energy Independence Day, by Executive Vice-President Henna Virkkunen, responsible for Tech Sovereignty, Security and Democracy, the Commissioner for Defence and Space, Andrius Kubilius, and the Commissioner for Internal Affairs and Migration, Magnus Brunner, the action plan has four main strands: - prevention; - detection; - response and repair of damaged cables; - deterrence.
The Commission and the European External Action Service point out that “while submarine cables can get damaged unintentionally, the pattern observed in recent months particularly in the Baltic Sea, suggests that this critical infrastructure is increasingly the target of deliberate hostile acts”. In November, a Chinese vessel came under suspicion. On Friday, Commissioner Virkkunen also equated these acts with the attempts to instrumentalise migration attributed to Russia and Belarus.
While the Commission and the EEAS focused on the Baltic Sea on Friday, the plan could also be reproduced in other maritime areas. With regard to prevention, the two institutions stress the urgent need for Member States to transpose the directives on critical entity resilience and network security, adopted under the previous legislature.
All operators will have to be covered. Cable stress tests will also be initiated, with funding of €30 million until 2027. It will also be necessary to invest in new technologies. In terms of investment, the Connecting Europe Facility (CEF) programme can already support 51 projects worth €420 million. And for 2025-2027, an additional €540 million will be invested under the CEF in digital infrastructures, including submarine data transmission cables.
With regard to the ‘detection’ strand, the Commission and the EEAS will propose to support the development and deployment, on a voluntary basis by the Member States, of an “integrated surveillance mechanism for submarine cables by sea basin” to help “willing Member States to link and fuse - on a trusted regional sea basin level data coming from several sources, including EMSA (European Maritime Safety Agency), Member States, private operators, (...) shipping industry or defence channels”.
This mechanism could also be used to strengthen the security of other maritime critical infrastructures, such as pipelines or offshore wind fields. “Where agreed by participating Member States, it should be possible to integrate military surveillance systems and data”.
The plan also encourages enhanced space surveillance services that closely monitor the activity of vessels of interest through the Copernicus programme, and provides for “a dedicated surveillance drones programme (air, surface and underwater) to boost the development and deployment of such capacities”.
In terms of ‘response and repair’, the Commission and the EEAS are calling for the stepping of cooperation and synergies with NATO, which already patrols the Baltic. They foresee an EU reserve fleet of cable vessels capable of intervening rapidly to repair a damaged cable, as “their current number and capacity would be insufficient to timely intervene in case of systemic and simultaneous attacks to critical cables across different maritime areas of the Union”. The action plan refers to EU funding and calls for voluntary funding from the Member States, without specifying the amount.
Finally, on deterrence, the EU is counting on “proactive cable diplomacy to reach out to strategic partners (...) and limit the impact of ‘phantom fleets’ (or) (...) by making the best use of the existing sanctions regimes”.
According to the International Telecommunication Union of the United Nations, quoted by AFP, 80% of damage is attributed to fishing and anchoring.
Link to the joint communication: https://aeur.eu/f/fln (Original version in French by Solenn Paulic)