Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2007-07-09-Speech-1-207"
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"en.20070709.21.1-207"2
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".
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, while I am grateful to all the speakers, including the rapporteur, I am afraid I have a few concerns about accepting the rather restrictive approach that the Committee on Transport and Tourism has tried to put across.
As certain Members have rightly pointed out – Mrs Segelström was the last, and there were others – restricting the minimum threshold for defining a European infrastructure to just three or more Member States would, in my view, have two drawbacks, the first of which would be to prevent the smaller European Member States from taking part in the critical infrastructure protection programme. We, of course, want to avoid any such eventuality. We want to offer all Member States that are potential targets for terrorist attacks a way of taking part in this European strategy.
I must also raise objections to the restrictive attitude that is hostile to the idea that Europe should concern itself with a common infrastructure protection framework. This is not a matter of subsidiarity, which we are extremely careful to respect. The problem is that infrastructures nowadays are closely interconnected, and the last speech by the Member from Estonia, who recalled the cyberattack on her country, provides the most obvious proof of that: it was an attack that affected an entire countrywide system. Even though only a single countrywide system was involved, can we have any doubt that that attack indirectly affected Estonia’s entire network of relations with the other countries of Europe? If the banking system of just one country is paralysed for a certain number of days, then one of the basic structures of the European Union is inevitably affected. I therefore believe that the Commission’s original proposal, for which I confirm my support, is better in that it provides a wider range of opportunities.
With regard to cyberattacks, I do not rule out the possibility that terrorists may plan an attack on a countrywide system, such as a banking system, a ministry or an administration system: we are examining what happened in Estonia and our information security agency will be producing a report after the summer. I obviously intend to publish its report but, leaving aside the analysis of this particular incident, we cannot rule out the possibility that terrorist organisations may be thinking of knocking out an entire countrywide system by means of a cyberattack. That is why I believe a rather less restrictive interpretation is absolutely essential.
To conclude, I once again thank the rapporteur and all the Members of this Parliament. I believe that adopting a rigorous report on the initiatives undertaken by the Commission would show very clearly that we are concerned about prevention. As someone rightly pointed out, the European Commission and the European Union’s institutions have been acting to strengthen our policies on prevention ever since 2004. It is only by doing so that we can provide a truly effective and coordinated response to the threat of terrorism."@en1
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