The European Commission has said it would propose boosting surveillance of undersea cables and establishing a fleet of vessels available to repair cables in emergencies.
Some European governments are concerned about a number of recent incidents in which power cables, telecom links and gas pipelines have been damaged, possibly on purpose.
Speaking of the action plan on February 21, Henna Virkkunen, the EC’s Executive Vice-President for Tech Sovereignty, Security and Democracy, said: “We want to make sure Europe is equipped not only to prevent and detect sabotage to cables but also to actively deter, repair and respond to any threat to critical infrastructure that is key to our economy and collective security.”
On the same day, Swedish police said they were investigating a suspected case of sabotage of an undersea telecoms cable in the Baltic Sea.
NATO said in January that some of its member countries were deploying frigates, patrol aircraft and naval drones in the Baltic Sea to help protect critical infrastructure.
In its action plan, the EC said it would take steps to deter, prevent, detect and respond to damage to cables.
While no new funding has been announced, it said it planned to channel hundreds of millions of euros already available under the European Union’s budget towards these aims.
Together with EU members, the EC said it would support the development of a surveillance mechanism “designed to link and fuse data” and “launch a dedicated surveillance drones programme” in the air and under the sea.
It would also work to establish a regional hub in the Baltic Sea region as a test for the new surveillance approach, according to the plan.
Another goal the EC outlined was ensuring the security of supply of spare parts and, in the medium term, proposing to create a reserve fleet “to be used in case of emergency, to deploy or repair electric or optical submarine cables”.
The EC, together with the bloc’s foreign policy chief Kaja Kallas, would additionally enhance co-operation with NATO on the resilience and protection of undersea infrastructure, it said, adding that the EU would hold malicious actors accountable.
