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The Government Security Center has proposed legislation to better protect critical infrastructure, including in the energy sector. At the same time the President has offered recommendations for the defence strategy. Poland is preparing for incidents, of which there are more and more in Europe – writes Wojciech Jakóbik, editor-in-chief at BiznesAlert.pl.
The director of the Government Security Center presented a draft law on amendments to the Legislation on Crisis Management. They will implement the provisions of the directive on the protection of critical actors (CER Directive), which was presented after the energy crisis and the invasion of Russia on Ukraine. The authors of the Polish legislation do not hide that they have been inspired by events in the East, and the impetus for action is the growing threat to critical infrastructure in the Baltic and beyond.
The proposed solutions are aimed at strengthening the mechanisms for protecting critical infrastructure, given that it is the core of the provision of services to the state and citizens. They also result from the analysis of the course of the war in Ukraine and emerging acts of sabotage and hybrid nature. The bill is expected to be ready for a vote in the third quarter of 2024 and should be supported by a political consensus.
It introduces a definition of critical services, broader than critical infrastructure and showing what needs to be protected in order to provide services necessary for the functioning of the state, such as energy and fuel supplies. It imposes an obligation on the relevant ministries in the form of creating audits and action plans. A strategy for the protection of critical infrastructure, departmental lists of entities (including private ones) responsible for its preventive protection, and action plans in the event of a crisis, also in relation to regions, are also to be created. Finally, there will be sanctions for not submitting protection plans to entities with critical infrastructure. This was lacking in the current legislation.
The President also wants to contribute the National Security Bureau (BBN) has made recommendations for a new security strategy that emphasizes the security of critical infrastructure, with Baltic ports like the Container terminal in Gdynia, where the Chinese are active, on top of the list. “This is one of the most important points – concerning the development of the critical Baltic infrastructure, the Baltic ports,” said Jacek Siewiera, director of the National Security Office. As he pointed out, we this concerns the deep-water terminal in Świnoujście and the ports of Gdańsk and Gdynia, which are critical to receiving allied support – including heavy equipment-in the event of an emergency. Importantly, in the chapter on energy security, BBN identifies the atom from the USA as a strategic project for Poland and lists a specific American technology as appropriate.
The initiative of the government and presidential administrations is important for the NATO summit and for the development of cooperation between the Alliance and the European Union to protect critical infrastructure in Europe from incidents that Russia may be behind. Cases of unexplained failures, with arson being a major cause, of critical infrastructure in the West are multiplying. The Russians may fear that a NATO member will invoke Article 5 of the Treaty calling for other members to help, so they are acting below this threshold using sabotage and diversion, which is being openly discussed by the security community on this side of the new iron curtain. The new regulations and the security strategy will allow Poland to find itself in this reality. It is expected that all parties will cooperate to implement these new measures.
