NATO and the EU are launching a task force to bolster the protection of critical infrastructure in response to last year’s attack on the Nord Stream gas pipelines

NATO and the EU are launching a task force to bolster the protection of critical infrastructure in response to last year’s attack on the Nord Stream gas pipelines and Russia’s “weaponising of energy”, leaders said on Wednesday, Qazet.az reports.

Speaking in Brussels, European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen said, according to Reuters:

This is a task force where our experts from NATO and the European Union will work hand-in-hand to identify key threats to our critical infrastructure, to look at the strategic vulnerabilities that we do have.

Von der Leyen said the sabotage of the Russia-to-Germany pipelines in the Baltic Sea last September showed the need “to confront this new type of threat”, adding the task force would initially come up with proposals on transport, energy, digital and space infrastructure.

Officials in Sweden and Denmark investigating the Nord Stream gas pipeline attack have not named any possible culprits.