Towards a Baltic Sea Region Strategy in Critical ... - Helsinki.fi

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
Critical infrastructures are systems, which are essential for the maintenance of
vital societal functions, including the supply chain, health, safety, security,
economic and social well-being of people. Although such systems have naturally
existed for a long time, the very concept of critical infrastructure is relatively new.
Its wider use as an authorised policy concept upon which programmes, action
plans, legislation and so forth are built can be traced back to the United States in
the mid-1990s. The related concept of critical infrastructure protection reflects the
more purposeful concern of the vulnerability of critical infrastructure. After some
delay, these concepts became popularised in Europe too.
All countries have their own national traditions, institutional structures,
policies and strategies, vocabulary, technical and methodological approaches and
so forth as to how they protect their critical infrastructures or vital societal
functions against different types of risks, threats and vulnerabilities. However,
with the European Commission Green Paper, published in November 2005, and
Proposal for a Directive of the Council from December 2006, a European
dimension has emerged in the field of critical infrastructure protection.
This development towards a more integrated European critical infrastructure
protection is a clear challenge for the national models and strategies, which differ
from country to country. How would it be possible to combine the national and
European levels of critical infrastructure protection into a harmonised and
effective strategy?
Another challenge is the regional dimension. How, in the context of the EU-
27, would it be possible to take into account the particular regional cross-border
effects of critical infrastructure vulnerabilities as well as the specific features –
such as particular weather conditions, technological capabilities, political and
administrative systems, safety culture – of European sub-regions, with a possible
presence of countries which are not members of the European Union?
This study is about critical infrastructure protection in general but has a
specific Baltic Sea Region perspective. It initiates discussion about the issue of
whether a regional level of critical infrastructure protection would be needed as an
intermediate level between the strategies of national governments and the
European Union. In addition, the study offers detailed case studies in some of the
most central critical infrastructure sectors, such as electricity, information and
communication technology, oil transportation and maritime safety, gas pipelines,
and water.
Towards a Baltic Sea Region strategy in critical infrastructure
protection
Chapter I starts this inquiry by opening some perspectives onto the particularities
of the Baltic Sea Region from the point of view of critical infrastructure
protection. These include specific climate conditions, long distances, in some
sectors and between some countries closely integrated economies, still a variety of
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