Page 123 - Cyber Terrorism and Extremism as Threat to Critical Infrastructure Protection

ROBERT MIKAC, KREŠIMIR MAMIĆ, IVA ŽUTIĆ: CYBERTERRORISM THREATS TO CRITICAL INFRASTRUCTURE: COORDINATION AND
COOPERATION FROM BRUSSELS TO SOUTH-EASTERN EUROPE AND BACK

significant laws adopted was the Act on the Cyber Security of the Key Service Operators and
Digital Services Providers (Croatian Parliament, 2018). The Act aims to ensure a high level of
cybersecurity in providing the services necessary for carrying out key social and economic ac-
tivities. This Act transposed the NIS Directive into the legislation of the Republic of Croatia.

The Republic of Croatia is very similar in strategic and normative terms to the development of
the strategic and normative framework at the EU level (with some time lag). All the analyzed
documents outlined the need for the best protection of critical infrastructure, the strengthen-
ing of cooperation between stakeholders in the protection of critical infrastructure, and the
development of the system and all necessary processes. The state of implementation will be
analyzed and presented in the next part of this paper.

According to analytical and empirical findings, the observed countries in South-Eastern Eu-
rope (Bosnia and Herzegovina, Serbia, Montenegro, Northern Macedonia and Kosovo) have
recently established strategic and normative frameworks for critical infrastructure protection
at different stages of implementation. Besides this, none of the observed countries has a sys-
tem in place for the protection of critical infrastructure and, in numerous activities, the Re-
public of Croatia is a specific model for them in the area concerned. We can conclude, by the
method of generalization, that the current situation in the Republic of Croatia in the field of
critical infrastructure protection (and protection from threats of terrorism and cyberterrorism)
is something that is yet to come to these countries.

4 Implementation of Critical Infrastructure Protection at
the EU Level

In the following quote, the authors summarize the key challenges facing all actors at EU
level when talking about cooperation in the field of critical infrastructure protection: “The
European Union and its member states face very unique challenges in critical infrastructure
protection (CIP) policy. In the past few years, the European Commission has adopted a num-
ber of policy initiatives in this field, including Directives and Communications to promote
the enhancement of preparedness, security and resilience. However, a number of outstanding
problems remain. First, member states are at varying degrees of maturity with respect to the
development of a comprehensive and effective CIP policy. Second, there are islands of co-
operation across the EU member states but no overall concept of operations at the EU level.
Third, partnerships and relationships are scattered across countries (each individual country
has and will maintain unique relationships with private sector owner operators and global
companies that enable them). Fourth, critical EU infrastructure is also scattered across many
different countries” (Heammerli and Renda, 2010: p 3).

Let us consider what forms and mechanisms of cooperation the EU has managed to develop
and their functionality. To support the Member States, the European Commission engaged
its own Joint Research Centre, which supports cooperation between states, industries and
critical infrastructure managers in the scientific field. Subsequently, the Commission has put
its focus on the development of different cooperation platforms between the Member States,
owners/managers of critical infrastructure, and interested professionals. A concrete measure
is to hold meetings of national contact points within the official format of the European Com-
mission, which are usually organized twice a year. At these meetings, the Member States have

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