The recent power outage in Berlin once again highlights how vulnerable our critical infrastructures are – and how closely physical security of supply and digital resilience are now linked. For the Internet industry, power outages have a direct impact on data centres, networks, platforms and digital services that are indispensable for the economy, administration and society.
Against this backdrop, eco – Association of the Internet Industry is calling for the Critical Infrastructures (KRITIS) Umbrella Act to be passed quickly and implemented effectively. A cross-sector, practical legal framework is needed that strengthens the physical protection of critical infrastructures and at the same time is consistently interlinked with IT and cybersecurity requirements – especially in the context of NIS2.
“The power outage in Berlin makes it unmistakably clear that critical infrastructures must be better protected – both physically and digitally”, explains Klaus Landefeld, eco Board Member for Infrastructure & Networks.
The association demands that the protection of critical infrastructures be permanently anchored as a priority issue on the political agenda in order to ensure the resilience of Germany as an economic and digital location.
The implementation deadline for the CER Directive (Critical Entities Resilience Directive), which came into force in December 2022, expired on 17 October 2024; since then, Germany has been in breach of EU Act due to its failure to implement the directive.
