On 26 March 2007, Justice and Security Commissioner Franco Frattini stated during the European security research conference : "We need better protection for critical infrastructures in Europe. The majority of them are owned by private undertakings and we need to work in close partnership with them".

The Critical Infrastructure (CI) Working Group supports the work of policy makers and other interested parties to:

• ensure a common approach at EU level and better protection of European Critical Infrastructure
• highlight the need to respect proportionality and complementarities and to create a level playing field among all operators
• put in place the necessary measures to ensure better emergency preparedness, implement priority communications on public networks and enhance information sharing

The CI Working Group' creation is actually quite timely.

In June 2004, the European Council asked the Commission to prepare a strategy for critical infrastructure protection in Europe.

Following this request, the Commission adopted a Green Paper on critical infrastructure protection in November 2005, which was followed on 12 December 2006 by a Commission proposal for a European Programme on Critical Infrastructure Protection (EPCIP).

In parallel to this process, the Commission adopted in May 2006a Communication on a strategy for a secure Information Society – "Dialogue, partnership and empowerment"(COM(2006)251), as a first step to discuss the possible issues for a European dialogue on critical communication and information infrastructure protection (CIIP). This action was also recently endorsed by the Council Resolution adopted on 11 December 2006.

In light of these developments, the CI Working Group's work currently focusses on the debate generated by