Page 124 - Cyber Terrorism and Extremism as Threat to Critical Infrastructure Protection

SECTION II: CYBER TERRORISM AND SECURITY IMPLICATION FOR CRITICAL INFRASTRUCTURE PROTECTION

the opportunity to exchange best practices and achievements at all stages of the protection of
national and European critical infrastructure. The Commission is the organizer and moderator,
finances the costs of all national contact points, prepares meeting materials, presents the lat-
est relevant results of the various programmes and projects, supports the initiatives and, most
importantly, enables the cooperation between the Member States.

In addition to this formal network, the Commission strongly encourages the Member States to
participate with their representatives in an informal network of experts within the framework
of the European Reference Network for Critical Infrastructure Protection (ERNCIP). This
network aims to provide a framework within which experimental facilities and laboratories
can share knowledge and expertise to align test protocols across Europe, leading to better
protection of critical infrastructure against all types of threats and dangers and to the creation
of a single market for security solutions.

Another significant opportunity that the European Commission offers to all stakeholders in
the field of critical infrastructure protection is project funding. Through the programme ‘Pre-
vention, Preparedness and Consequence Management of Terrorism and other Security Re-
lated Risks’, 140 million EUR was invested in operational cooperation and activities between
2007 and 2013, and over 120 projects were funded. The projects were extensive in scope and
involved all sectors where critical infrastructure could be identified. Their primary purpose
was to ensure the advancement of knowledge, a better understanding of the functioning of
critical infrastructure at all levels, and the scientific groundwork for current and future re-
search, and to provide public policy recommendations.

The next significant step in establishing cooperation and sharing of knowledge and experience
at the European level was to design and launch the Critical Infrastructure Warning Information
Network (CIWIN), which was announced in the Green Paper on a European Programme for
Critical Infrastructure Protection in 2005, gradually created with a modular approach, and be-
came operational in January 2013. The purpose of the network is to exchange information on
risk mitigation strategies and measures in the protection of critical infrastructure. It has been
developed as a proprietary web platform of the European Commission for all interested experts
from the Member States in the field of critical infrastructure (Mikacet al., 2018: pp 95-99).

This has been an overview of some of the Commission’s activities to create postulates and
interconnect different stakeholders of critical infrastructure protection systems. There is more
to these activities, but we believe that we have adequately outlined the activities of the Com-
mission which foster cooperation between the Member States and the EU bodies. Below,
we explore the level of collaboration in the area of critical infrastructure protection against
(cyber)terrorism.

The protection of critical infrastructure against the threats of terrorism at EU level comes
from key EU documents dealing with counter-terrorism issues. The European Union Counter-
Terrorism Strategy is built around four strands: Prevent, Protect, Pursue, Respond. Protection
is a key part of the Strategy. It states that “reducing the vulnerability across Europe of critical
infrastructure to physical and electronic attack is essential.” In the part that deals with respon-
sibility, it says “while Member States have the primary responsibility for improving the pro-
tection of key targets, the interdependency of border security, transport and other cross-border
infrastructure require effective EU collective action” (European Council, 2005: pp 10-11). It
is important to single out how, in line with the Strategy, the Member States have the primary

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