EU and NATO create a joint team to protect Europe's infrastructure network

The European Union and NATO have announced the launch of a joint initiative to increase the protection of Europe's infrastructure network against possible external attacks, a measure in response to situations such as the sabotage of the Nord Stream gas pipeline last September.

This was confirmed by European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen at the start of Wednesday's meeting of Commissioners in Brussels, which was attended by NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg and comes a day after the signing of a new joint declaration that strengthens the link between the two organisations and will guide relations in the coming years.

"We are launching a new EU-NATO task force on critical infrastructure resilience, in which experts from both organisations will work hand in hand to identify threats, study strategic vulnerabilities, develop principles for improvement and propose measures to mitigate", said the leader of the European Executive, who pointed out that the initiative will focus on the transport sector, energy, space and the digital field.

The aim is for European allies and partners to share information, to have early warning of threats and to be able to respond appropriately, she added. "The security of our infrastructures is something where we need to increase cooperation. We have seen the sabotage of Nord Stream, which has shown that we have to be ready and confront this type of threat", the German Conservative defended.

Von der Leyen linked this initiative to a global scenario in which "competitors" of the EU and NATO use "all possible tools to damage security and seek to exploit values such as openness and exploit the interdependencies" of the West. "That is why it is important to strengthen our overall resilience," he stressed.

For his part, NATO's political chief pointed out that, in the context of the war in Ukraine, Europeans have seen how Russian President Vladimir Putin is using energy as a weapon, which is why he defended this new initiative as "an important step towards making societies stronger".

Stoltenberg stressed the need for NATO and the EU to work together to increase the resilience of critical infrastructure, technology and the supply chain to potential threats, and to be able to take measures to mitigate potential vulnerabilities in the European network.

Nearly eleven months into the military aggression launched by Russian President Vladimir Putin, the allied secretary general stressed increased military support for Kiev at a "key juncture" in the conflict, when fighting in eastern Ukraine has intensified. "This shows how vital it is to strengthen military support. We have to do even more and even faster," he said.

Von der Leyen called for more military spending in Europe to make NATO stronger, but also insisted that investment must be made in a coordinated way, "spending better to avoid fragmentation and that we build interoperable forces and maintain a strong defence industrial base".