Brussels, 05/02/2007 (Agence Europe) - Last Friday the European Commission adopted a communication on protecting critical infrastructure in energy and transport. This sets out criteria for identifying what this infrastructure actually is. The document, which presents the results from the first reflection carried out by representatives from member states and stakeholders at a European level, is the first contribution to the European Programme on the Protection of Critical Infrastructure adopted in December 2006. As soon as the draft directive on identifying and classifying critical European infrastructure for protection is adopted by the Council (EUROPE 9326), it will be possible to apply communication criteria.
The communication so far only focuses on the choice of criteria for identifying critical European infrastructure that could be vulnerable to terrorist attacks, criminal action or natural disasters which could lead to blockage or paralysis in daily life at a European level, such as the electricity blackout on 4 November in Germany, which affected Belgium, Austria, France, Netherlands, Spain and Portugal.
Confronted by the enormous challenge of defining inter-connection links and interdependency of energy and transport infrastructure sector by sector and domain by domain, the Commission suggests an integrated but simple identification system but which can be applied to all European infrastructure and which can help determine what is and what is not critical infrastructure. In this respect, the existence of an “alternative” will constitute automatic criteria for decreased risk. In transport, for example, the very existence of an alternative connection between starting and arrival points, either by another road or via another mode of transport, would identify the infrastructure as being less likely to be critical. Concerns about generalisation are likely to lead to the Commission excluding from applicable criteria the examination of interdependency of energy and transport networks.
The communication and criteria will be submitted to the opinion of the Parliament and Council of Ministers but respect for criteria will only be mandatory when member states agree on the directive and when this enters into force.