Critical Entities Resilience Directive (CER)

(15) The actions of Member States to identify and help ensure the resilience of critical entities should follow a risk-based approach that focuses on the entities most relevant for the performance of vital societal functions or economic activities. In order to ensure such a targeted approach, each Member State should carry out, within a harmonised framework, an assessment of the relevant natural and man-made risks, including those of a cross-sectoral or cross-border nature, that could affect the provision of essential services, including accidents, natural disasters, public health emergencies such as pandemics and hybrid threats or other antagonistic threats, including terrorist offences, criminal infiltration and sabotage (‘Member State risk assessment’). When carrying out Member State risk assessments, Member States should take into account other general or sector-specific risk assessments carried out pursuant to other Union legal acts and should consider the extent to which sectors depend on one another, including on sectors in other Member States and third countries. The outcome of Member State risk assessments should be used for the purposes of identifying critical entities and assisting those entities in meeting their resilience requirements. This Directive applies only to Member States and critical entities that operate within the Union. Nevertheless, the expertise and knowledge generated by competent authorities, in particular through risk assessments, and by the Commission, in particular through various forms of support and cooperation, could be used, where appropriate and in accordance with the applicable legal instruments, for the benefit of third countries, in particular those in the direct neighbourhood of the Union, by feeding into existing cooperation on resilience.