Wiley Handbook of Science and Technology for Homeland Security, 4 Volume Set

GERMANY

MANUEL SUTER AND ELGIN BRUNNER

Center for Security Studies (CSS), ETH Zurich, Switzerland

1 CRITICAL SECTORS

The main assumption underlying CIP/CIIP in Germany is that both the government and society as a whole depend heavily on a secure infrastructure. Organizations or facilities whose failure or impairment would cause a sustained storage of supplies, significant disruptions of public order, or other dramatic consequences for large parts of the population are defined as critical. According to the German constitution, it is the state's task to guarantee public security and order and to ensure that the population is provided with essential goods.

The following are the infrastructure sectors defined as critical in Germany: [1]

• Transportation and Traffic,
• Energy,
• Hazardous Materials,
• Telecommunications and Information Technology,
• Financial, monetary and insurance systems,
• Supply (including water supply, food supply, healthcare, emergency and rescue services),
• Government Agencies, Administration, and Justice,
• Media, research facilities, cultural property.

2 PAST AND PRESENT INITIATIVES AND POLICIES

In the past ten years, many activities have been undertaken that were directly or indirectly related to the issue of critical infrastructure protection. They emerged from inter-ministerial activities begun in 1997 at the initiative of the Federal Minister of the Interior, motivated in part by the study produced by the US President's Commission on Critical Infrastructure Protection ...