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Brussels has said that the emergency stocks of critical minerals and cable repair sets will build up, because concern is growing over the vulnerability of the EU to attack.
“The EU is confronted with an increasingly complex and deteriorating risk landscape characterized by rising geopolitical tensions, including conflicts, the increasing consequences of climate change, damage to the environment and hybrid and cyber threats,” the European Commission said in a concept document.
Member States must coordinate backup supplies of food, medicines and even nuclear fuel, the EU director said. It would also accelerate the work on supplies at EU level of items such as cable repair modules “to guarantee quickly recovery of energy or optical cable disturbances” and raw materials such as rare earths and permanent magnets that are crucial for energy and defense systems.
Various cases of potential sabotage for underwater cables and gas pipelines in recent years have been worried about the vulnerability of critical infrastructure.
The strategy is part of a wider push from the EU to improve the safety and resilience of the 27-country block. Last month, General Carsten Breuer, the German Chief of Defense, warned that Russia was able to attack an EU member state in the coming four years.
The environment with a higher risk was powered by ” increased activity of hacktivists, cyber criminals and groups sponsored by the state, ‘the document said.
The EU is also more sensitive than many other regions for the effects of climate change, because it warms up twice as quickly as the global average. Wild burning in Crete forced 5,000 people to evacuate the island this week.
In a report in October in October, the former Finnish president Sauli Niinistö said that safety should be considered “publicly good” and called for a mentality of readyness.
At the stock, he said that Brussels should “define goals to ensure minimum levels of readyness in various crisis scenarios, including in the case of armed aggression or the large -scale disruption of global supply chains”.
The EU also advised households in March to save essential supplies to survive at least 72 hours of crisis.
The block is already maintaining a fleet of fire fighting aircraft and helicopters, a medical evacuation aircraft and items such as field hospitals and critical medical supplies in 22 EU countries as part of the emergency aid efforts for natural disasters.
But the committee said it would establish a “stock network” to improve coordination between EU countries. There was “limited common insight into which essential goods are needed for crisis parality against the background of a rapidly evolving risk landscape,” said it in the document.
It would also start with compiling regularly updated lists with essential supplies that are tailored to every region and the crisis type. Member States should better stimulate the private sector to help with the stock, such as through tax credits, it said.
The block must also work with allies on “shared storage” and better coordinate in managing resources and infrastructure for double use with NATO.
The need for investments in critical stock would also be considered in proposals for his new multiannual budget, which must be brought forward later this month.
The concept document will be published next week and could change before the presentation.
