Germany announced the strengthening of protection of critical infrastructure

BERLIN, 15 Oct – PRIME. Against the background of the Nord Stream attack and the damage to the cables of the Deutsche Bahn network, German Interior Minister Nancy Feser promised to improve the protection of critical infrastructure and urged operators to build new facilities to protect it.

“Protecting our critical infrastructure has the highest priority,” the minister said in an interview with the Süddeutsche Zeitung.

Security authorities, she added, are taking “additional protective measures where required.” Thus, the protection of maritime infrastructure has been enhanced by a significant increase in the presence of the federal police at sea.

Feather announced that later this year she will present key points of a new critical infrastructure law to the cabinet. Operators of critical facilities will be required by law to “comprehensively arm” against dangers such as natural disasters, terrorism, sabotage, and human error.

The minister urged operators to strengthen security and invest in new facilities to protect infrastructure, such as backup systems in case the main ones fail.

The destruction of pipelines in the Baltic Sea and the sabotage of the Deutsche Bahn power grid clearly showed, Feser stressed, that the situation had changed for the worse.

A week ago, Deutsche Bahn reported technical malfunctions that completely paralyzed the movement of long-distance trains in northern Germany. It was later restored, but subsequently there were failures and delays of trains. Later, the German news agency dpa, citing a representative of the Deutsche Bahn company, reported that the stoppage of train traffic was caused by sabotage.

The attacks took place on September 26 at once on two Russian export gas pipelines to Europe – Nord Stream and Nord Stream 2. Germany, Denmark and Sweden do not rule out targeted sabotage. The Nord Stream operator Nord Stream AG reported that the state of emergency on gas pipelines is unprecedented and it is impossible to estimate the repair time. The Prosecutor General’s Office of the Russian Federation initiated a case on an act of international terrorism after the damage to the Nord Stream gas pipelines.