Christian Bueger

Tag Archives: critical maritime infrastructure protection


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Mediterranean Connectivity: Strategies, Threats and Opportunities – event in Rome

For centuries, the Mediterranean Sea has been one of the world’s busiest waterways. Since the opening of the Suez Canal, it has served not only as the key transport corridor for shipping between Asia and Europe but has also become a global super data highway in the age of fiber optic communications.

The Mediterranean is an increasingly important hub for energy. New underwater power cables are connecting North Africa with the Southern European electricity grid. Extensive fossil fuel exploitation in the Eastern Mediterranean is in its early stages.

Like other regional seas, the Mediterranean is becoming an industrialized space of maritime infrastructures.

The 24th Mediterranean Strategy Group meeting of the German Marshall Fund took up the challenge to reflect on what this connectivity implies for the region under the theme of “connectivity.” 45 experts from 15 countries discussed the issue in Rome.

Panelists of discussion on subsea data cables in the Mediterranean, Rome, 4.6.2024
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Critical maritime infrastructures and the blue economy

Continuing the discussion on the future of critical maritime infrastructure protection, I had the pleasure to chair a panel on the topic at the 2024 European Maritime Day.

With presentations from Iglika Yakova (DG Mare), Anne Mette Mosekjær Søndergaard (Oersted), Nathalie De Jaeger (Belgian Government), and Izabela Surwillo (Danish Institute for International Studies), we specifically looked into the link between critical maritime infrastructure protection (CMIP) and the blue economy.

CMIP allows us to evaluate blue economy ambitions in a new light, since harvesting and preserving ocean resources involves the planning, building and protection of infrastructures. These range from energy platforms, to cables, aquaculture farms to the sensors needed for ocean monitoring and restoration projects.

CMIP emphasizes that the decisive question of contemporary ocean governance is how we protect and care for ocean infrastructures. Such a line of thinking offers opportunities to overcome the fragmentation between discourses of maritime security and the blue economy.

The European Maritime Day is the annual celebration of the European Union to take stock of efforts in developing the blue economy, restoring marine biodiversity and safeguarding marine activities. The 2024 edition took place in Svendborg, Denmark at the Svendborg International Maritime Academy.

Organization by the European Commission’s Directorate General for Maritime Affairs and Fisheries (DG Mare), the event attracts more than 1.000 visitors, mainly from, science, technology and government.


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2nd symposium on critical maritime infrastructure protection focused on the North Sea

The North Sea is a strategic space for the green transition. It is a paradigmatic space for heavily industrialized regional seas with a high density of infrastructure. Efficient and reliable critical maritime infrastructure protection is hence vital for the region. As part of the Edinburgh-Copenhagen partnership and in collaboration with the SafeSeas, we held a second symposium on the North Sea in Edinburgh from 23rd to 24th of May.

Drawing on the insights of the first symposium, which had focused on industry needs, the threat landscape and the responses by governments and regional organizations in the North Sea, this event investigated legal gaps, operations at sea, the cyber-physical protection nexus, as well as societal and market responses to the new threat landscape.

At the event I outlined the changing face of maritime security in the age of infrastructure, drawing on our book Understanding Maritime Security, the importance to recognize the entanglement of infrastructures and security debates, and the need to understand the North Sea as a laboratory.

The summary is available on the SafeSeas website.


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Field visit to Shetlands

Shetland Islands is the proto-type of an energy island and at the heart of the green energy transition in the North Sea. Moving from oil and gas to renewable energy production is at the heart of the islands transformation. From the 19th to 22nd of May, I conducted a field visit together with Professor Andrew Neal from the University of Edinburgh to discuss with local experts the transition and explore the multitude of infrastructures on the islands, how they are entangled and how they are protected.

The visit was part of the Copenhagen Edinburgh partnership project on ‘Securing the Green Transition in the North Sea.’ A field report is in the making.