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

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
It is clear that the ability to identify and analyze interdependencies is an important
part of critical infrastructure protection. It is argued in the introduction that
although the interdependencies are a common feature of critical infrastructure
systems and often materialize via cyber connections through information and
communication technology, most of them are regionally determined, that is, they
are closely related to geographic proximity and integrated regional networks. This
is particularly true in the Baltic Sea Region and especially in the Nordic countries,
where critical infrastructures are in many sectors part of the very same Nordic
infrastructure system.
The introduction also discusses ‘the dilemma of private-public partnership’ in
critical infrastructure protection. While the governments have the overall
responsibility for the protection of critical infrastructures, most of these
infrastructures are owned and operated by the private sector. In a globalised world,
national critical infrastructures are also dependent on situation of other countries’
critical infrastructures beyond the regulative power of a nation state. The dilemma
is that the private parties, while ready for cooperation, resist taking measures that
go substantially beyond their business continuity requirements. In most cases, the
public sector cannot take the financial responsibility to protect private critical
infrastructures either, whereas increasing state regulation to force the private
sector to put more resources to deal with the protection or resilience of those
infrastructures they own or operate is also a difficult political issue. What remains
is some kind of soft regulation, that is, public-private partnership confined to mere
awareness raising, information sharing and best practice exchange. This solution
seems to be the case also in the European Union and in the majority of the Baltic
Sea Region countries, although there are some differences between the countries
as to their readiness to implement stronger regulative efforts by the governments.
Concerning the European Union’s efforts to enhance the multilateral
approaches in critical infrastructure protection, the introduction reviews the Green
Paper from November 2005 and the Directive Proposal from December 2006, the
latter still to be adopted. As a whole the Directive Proposal seems to have found an
acceptable compromise between the needs of multilateral or even supranational
cooperation and coordination and the national governments’ defensive reactions
against the threats to their autonomy and sovereignty in a field that traditionally
has been regarded as their sole legal responsibility. The compromise limits to the
joint regulation concerning the specifically ‘European’ critical infrastructures, and
leaves the national infrastructures to be protected by national strategies and
solutions. More far-reaching approach would probably be not acceptable by most
of the Member States in the Baltic Sea Region; bottom-up approaches are
preferred, although the Member States seem to be prepared to accept some soft
legislative regulation and welcome more coordination.
The question then is, from the perspective of this study, whether a regional
level of governance in critical infrastructure protection is needed to intermediate
between the national governments and the European levels when trying in practice
to deal with the extremely complex cross-sectoral and cross-border issues with
multiple actors at different levels. This question is relevant especially in a region
such as the Baltic Sea Region with strong presence of non-European Union
countries in the field of cross-border (and European) critical infrastructures.
NORDREGIO REPORT 2007:5
XVII