PARLIAMENT APPROVES CER DIRECTIVE
On 22 November, the European Parliament gave its final approval to the Directive on the resilience of critical entities (CER Directive), containing rules on improving the protection of the EU’s essential infrastructure. The new rules will harmonise the definition of critical infrastructure, to improve consistency between the Member States. The new legislation is consistent with the recently-adopted NIS2 directive on cybersecurity.
Covering the sectors of energy, transport, banking, financial market infrastructure, digital infrastructure, drinking and waste water, food (including production, processing and delivery), health, public administration and space, the legislation tightens the requirements for risk assessments and reporting for actors considered critical.
According to the new rules, Member States should adopt national resilience strategies, and cross-border communication should happen through designated single points of contact in each Member State. At the same time, they should avoid double reporting between this and other resilience-boosting initiatives, so that critical actors do not face an unnecessary administrative burden. To ensure transparency, critical actors should inform national authorities of any incidents or disturbances, and the authorities should inform the public when this is in the public interest.
Source: European Parliament