German lawmakers on Thursday will vote on new legislation requiring basic utilities and other critical infrastructure bolster their respective security to reduce vulnerabilities to terrorism, accidents, and other emergencies.
The bill’s vote comes amid growing tensions with Russia stoking fears of sabotage attacks and other national security threats.
In a Wednesday press release, the German Bundestag detailed that the draft legislation, known as the “Kritis umbrella law” was passed by the legislative body’s Internal Affairs Committee with the votes of the of the CDU/CSU and SPD coalition factions and the AfD faction, with the Green Party and Left Party abstaining. The draft bill is slated for its final deliberation at the Bundestag plenary on Thursday.
The legislation aims to establish and implement “uniform minimum requirements” for the physical protection of critical infrastructure facilities in Germany for the first time.
The Bundestag explained that the law would require operators of “critical” facilities to take “appropriate and proportionate measures” to protect their facilities, granting the German Interior Ministry authorization to lay down the minimum protection requirements. The legislation also introduces provisions for the introduction of an incident-reporting system.
“With the umbrella act for critical infrastructure protection, we are making Germany more resilient to crises and attacks,” German Interior Minister Alexander Dobrindt said when the bill was proposed by the federal government in September. “To this end, we are introducing uniform minimum standards, risk analyses and incident monitoring mechanisms. Our goal is clear: we need to strengthen the defense capabilities and resilience of our critical infrastructure.”
If passed, the bill would bring Germany in line with E.U. directives and would see some 1,700 essential service providers step up their security, which amounts to more than 500,000 people collectively across Germany’s energy, water, food, health, and communications services, among others.
France 24 reports that, the bill comes at a time of surging tensions with Russia stoking fears of sabotage attacks and other national security threats.
“For several years, Germany has faced what officials describe as a Russian campaign of sabotage, espionage and disinformation aimed at destabilizing the country, a major supplier of military aid to Ukraine and a key NATO logistics hub,” France 24 wrote. “Moscow has denied the allegations.”
The outlet noted that Berlin recently had a “wake-up call” when a radical leftist group carried out an attack on high-voltage power lines in September that left thousands in Berlin without power for more than two days, increasing the urgency of calls from local politicians for better infrastructure protection.
“The left-wing extremist attack on the Berlin power grid and all the many other attacks — both small and large — in recent months have shown that we simply have to protect our critical infrastructure better,” German Chancellor Friedrich Merz reportedly said on Wednesday.
The yet-to-be voted legislation has reportedly received criticisms from the German Green Party, who deemed it as “completely inadequate.”
“We remain miles away from urgently needed, uniform protection of our critical infrastructure,” Green Party deputy parliamentary leader Konstantin von Notz told AFP.
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