Audible response

Danish Ports' consultation response regarding the European Commission's proposal for a directive on the resilience of critical units

Danish Ports supports that efforts to protect critical infrastructure (including ports) are adapted and strengthened through a targeted assessment of all relevant natural and man-made risks that may affect the delivery of essential services, including accidents, natural disasters, public health crises such as pandemics and antagonistic threats, including terrorist acts.

We also support that Member States can identify critical entities using common criteria based on a national risk assessment.

General comments on the proposal:

When Member States designate critical infrastructure, it is important to assess whether the costs and administrative burden for ports, for example, are proportional to the threat.

The national authority should carry out a specific risk assessment of each port and on this basis decide whether it should be included as a critical infrastructure in the directive. It should also be specified which parts of the port, for example, are considered critical infrastructure in that case.

It is important to involve companies/ports in the work as they can help identify the critical infrastructure.

Danish commercial ports are already subject to extensive security measures. They have to prepare vulnerability assessments and security plans, in addition to the NIS2 directive, which also covers ports.

Danish Ports fear that if ports have to spend large resources on implementing this directive as well as the NIS2 directive, it could ultimately mean unequal competition in favor of land transport. This will ultimately also be detrimental to the climate.

There will also be significant costs for critical entities under this Directive when they have to conduct their own risk assessment, take appropriate technical and organizational measures to increase resilience and report disruptive incidents to national authorities.

It is therefore very important that if ports are also covered by this directive, it must be coordinated with the other efforts to minimize the administrative and financial burden.

Danish Ports suggests that there is the possibility of financial and professional support for the companies / ports covered by the requirements.

Specific comments on the amendments

It appears from the recitals to the proposal, paragraphs 7 and 25, that existing data/assessments carried out under other EU rules must be utilized. This includes vulnerability assessment and port security plans.

We find it of great importance that the transfer of relevant data and assessments is as simple as possible. In as simple a matrix as possible, where all Member State authorities gather their information/assessments in the same template.

It is essential that the resources mentioned in Chapter II, Article 8, paragraph 4, are distributed equally according to a matrix so that the underlying authorities/organizations are able to contribute their cooperation and knowledge to the unifying joint authority without compromising their other responsibilities and obligations. For the ports, this means that the Danish Transport, Construction and Housing Authority, the Danish Maritime Authority, the Police and the Danish Armed Forces are also allocated the right resources to carry out the task.

In relation to Chapter III, Article 11, it is important that a sufficient common pool is ensured at EU level to support points (a) and (d) in the affected EU countries. This means a pool/buffer for natural disasters, pandemic, terrorism, which supports infrastructure that affects at least 2 member states or the 1/3 of member states also mentioned in the proposal. This could be the consequences of damage to the shipping channel into the port, ex. in the event of a major shipwreck. For the COVID-19 pandemic, we can point to the supply to the vaccine factory and securing the transportation routes to the EU countries.

Kind regards

Danish Ports

Kasper Ullum ku@danskehavne.dk +4542449161