Baltic seabed sabotage highlights Europe's vulnerability
The Polish Economic Institute reports in Thursday's edition of Economic Weekly that despite the severance of two telecommunications lines at the bottom of the Baltic Sea, network traffic was almost unaffected. The PIE highlights critical points in Europe for similar sabotage threats.
In the middle of the month, internet cables at the bottom of the Baltic Sea were cut. These cables connect Lithuania with Sweden and Finland with Germany. PIE states that despite this incident, the internet continued to function flawlessly.
This indicates that our region's digital connectivity infrastructure is well-developed, with alternative routes for signal transmission available," assessed Ignacy Święcicki from the Polish Economic Institute in Thursday's edition of "Economic Weekly".
The think tank explains that internet traffic is also transmitted via terrestrial and satellite connections. In Finland or Sweden, the sea route is considerably shorter.
Sensitive points in Europe
However, the so-called Old Continent is not entirely immune to this type of "failure". For instance, island nations are dependent on submarine infrastructure - in the EU, this includes Ireland, Malta and Cyprus.
A crucial location in this context is Marseille in France, situated on the Mediterranean Sea. From here, 16 cables connect Europe with Africa and Asia. Additionally, Marseille is a major hub housing data centres.
Such locations may be particularly vulnerable to various types of attacks aimed at disrupting telecommunications," emphasizes PIE.
The European Commission and NATO are not indifferent to this threat, the institute evaluated. This is evidenced by the first meeting of NATO's network of experts on submarine critical infrastructure, which took place in May this year. Three months earlier, the European Commission, in a White Paper on developing the telecommunications market, emphasised the necessity of ensuring the security of submarine cables.
Importantly, the role of submarine cables will grow in the coming years, and attacks are not the only threat warns PIE.
"The Union risks dependency on a small number of providers of critical infrastructure, similar to the scenario with cloud computing or AI tools controlled by large American companies," alerts the Polish think tank.
What happened in the Baltic Sea?
On 17 and 18 November, two submarine telecommunication cables in the Baltic Sea were damaged - C-Lion 1 and BCS East-West Interlink. The incident occurred in the Swedish economic zone. The crew of the Chinese ship Yi Peng 3 is suspected of severing the cables.
The vessel is anchored in international waters in the Kattegat Strait between Denmark and Sweden, surrounded by Danish and Swedish ships. Swedish and German authorities are negotiating the possibility of boarding and questioning the crew. The ship's captain is a Chinese citizen, and among the crew is a Russian member.
On Wednesday, "The Wall Street Journal" reported that investigators examining the cable break on the Baltic seabed suspect that the detained Chinese container ship intentionally cut the wires. According to the WSJ findings, the investigation is concentrating on whether the ship's captain committed sabotage on orders from Russian services.
