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Critical Infrastructure Resilience: News, Updates and Events
Get PDFThe current newsletter updates subscribers to important developments in EU-level work on critical infrastructure resilience.
On 11 September, the European Commission released a Communication setting out new guidelines to enhance the resilience of critical infrastructure across the EU, supporting Member States in identifying critical entities. Aligned with the Critical Entities Resilience (CER) Directive, the guidance provides practical tools for identifying critical entities across 11 sectors. The Communication includes a voluntary reporting template for national risk assessment results.
On 16 October 2025, the Commission also published a Communication on the Defence Readiness Roadmap, responding to the significantly altered strategic environment and building upon the Defence White Paper. The roadmap calls for the urgent closure of critical capability gaps through the establishment of Capability Coalitions, scaling up joint procurement to at least 40 % of total spend and channeling the new SAFE instrument and other EU funds into rapid, high volume production.
On 19 November 2025, the Commission adopted a proposal for a Digital Omnibus, which proposes a single entry point for incident notification. This includes incidents under the CER Directive. The date for transposing the CER Directive has passed – 18 Member States have notified complete or partial transposition. Member State administrations are finalizing national risk assessments and developing national resilience strategies, which are due by mid-January 2026. These efforts cover the 11 sectors addressed by the Directive and aim to mitigate both man-made and natural risks that could disrupt the provision of essential services to society and the economy.
The European Commission continues to support Member States in this process and the Critical Entities Resilience Group has proven to be a valuable platform for addressing challenges and sharing good practices. A call for proposals was published on 10 December with a 15 million euro budget to support critical entities and Member States in implementing the CER Directive.JRC.E.2 - Space, Connectivity and Economic Securit
Clean Energy Technology Observatory: Water Electrolysis and Hydrogen in the European Union - 2025 Status Report on Technology Development, Trends, Value Chains and Markets
Get PDFThis report from the Clean Energy Technology Observatory (CETO) updates the status of water electrolysers and hydrogen in the EU. The EU's cumulative electrolysis capacity is projected to range between 514 MWel and 800 MWel by the end of 2025. The EU's operational manufacturing capacity is estimated at approximately 8.9 GWel/year by the end of 2025, with a potential to reach 41.7 GWel/year by 2030 considering all companies’ announcements. While the EU leads in patenting activities, it faces challenges from state-backed competition, higher capital expenditure costs than anticipated, and critical dependence on imported raw materials. The European sector is supported by significant public funding, with instruments like the Innovation Fund and European Hydrogen Bank.
CETO is being implemented by the Joint Research Centre for DG Research and Innovation Energy, in coordination with DG Energy.JRC.C.1 - Battery and Hydrogen Technologie
Climate change impacts on floods in West Africa: New insight from two large-scale hydrological models
No full textWest Africa is projected to face unprecedented shifts in temperature and extreme precipitation patterns as a result of climate change. The devastating impacts of river flooding are already being felt in most West African countries, emphasizing the urgent need for comprehensive insights into the frequency and magnitude of floods to guide the design of hydraulic infrastructure for effective flood risk mitigation and water resource management. Despite its significant socio-economic and environmental impacts, flood hazards remain poorly documented in West Africa due to the data-related challenges. This study aims to fill this knowledge gap by providing a large-scale analysis of flood frequency and magnitudes across West Africa, focusing on how climate change may influence future flood trends. To achieve this, we have used two large-scale hydrological models driven by five bias-corrected CMIP6 climate models under two Shared Socioeconomic Pathways (SSPs). The Generalized Extreme Value (GEV) distribution was utilized to analyze trends and detect change points by comparing multiple non-stationary GEV models across historical and future periods for a set of 58 catchments. Future flood patterns were first assessed by comparing two 30-year periods (a near-term future [2031–2060] and a long-term future [2071–2100]), against a historical reference period [1985–2014]. Both hydrological models consistently projected increases in flood frequency and magnitude across West Africa, despite their differences in hydrological processes representation and calibration schemes. Flood magnitude is projected to increase for 94 % of the stations, with some locations experiencing increases exceeding 45 % in magnitude. In addition, the majority of significant trends are identified starting in the historical period, predominantly before 1970, under both SSP2-4.5 and SSP5-8.5. The findings from this study provide regional-scale insights into the evolving flood risks across West Africa and highlight the urgent need for climate-resilient strategies to safeguard populations and infrastructure against the increasing threat of flood hazards.JRC.E.1 - Disaster Risk Managemen
Towards the definition of a benchmark for WMTS
No full textWeb Map Tile Service (WMTS) is a fundamental component of a digital infrastructure for visualizing geospatial big data, supporting many applications across various domains. Despite their ubiquity and long-standing use, systematic and dedicated benchmarks are currently lacking. Practitioners will highly benefit from such a framework since it provides clear guidance on assessing the performance, scalability, and advantages of WMTS implementations under varying conditions, especially in data-intensive contexts such as those demanded by modern AI applications. This work proposes a framework to study which aspects a WMTS benchmark should consider. By empirically evaluating custom and open-source WMTS solutions, this work identifies specific factors that significantly impact test outcomes, emphasizing the need for well-defined and representative test cases.JRC.T.4 - Data Governance and Service
Resonant inelastic x-ray scattering probing excited states in metallic AmFe2
No full textResonant inelastic x-ray scattering (RIXS) is a powerful tool for probing the ground-state electronic configurations of actinide materials. However, in certain metallic uranium compounds, RIXS fails to detect excitations from the ground-state multiplet. This absence is attributed to strong hybridization between uranium 5 f electrons and conduction electrons. In the present study, we extend RIXS investigations to a 16 µg sample of the metallic compound AmFe2, marking an experiment at the M4,5 edges of a transuranium material. Americium in AmFe2 adopts a trivalent (Am3+) state with a 5 f 6 electronic configuration having a J = 0 ground state, with the 5 f states located approximately 3 eV below EF . The RIXS spectra exhibit well-resolved features that are in good agreement with theory. The localized nature of the 5 f electrons in AmFe2 permits the observation of multiplet excitations despite its metallic character. These observations extend our understanding of RIXS in actinide systems.JRC.G.I.5 - Nuclear Science and Innovation for Energy and Healt
Monitoring and Modelling Soil Respiration in Deciduous and Broadleaf Evergreen Oak-Dominated Ecosystems in Greece
No full textClimate change alters rainfall patterns and increases temperatures, which disrupt soil processes, enhance CO2 emissions, and reduce the capacity of soils to store carbon. Soil respiration, the CO2 released into the atmosphere from the soil, is a vital process in the terrestrial carbon cycle. We performed a two-year study investigating the seasonal variation of soil CO2 efflux in two typical oak-dominated Mediterranean ecosystems, a deciduous and a broadleaf evergreen one, as we lack sufficient information on this topic. To understand the drivers of soil respiration, we also monitored soil water content and temperature, as well as organic matter input by sampling litterfall and fine roots and by applying in parallel a litter and root exclusion approach. We found a 30\%–54\% higher soil CO2 efflux in broadleaf evergreens vs. deciduous oaks, depending on the season. We also identified significant effects of all tested drivers on soil respiration. Soil water content controlled the dependency of soil respiration on temperature and resulted in the highest CO2 emissions in spring, when these conditions were optimal. The high litterfall input and turnover rate in spring further supported the peak of CO2 respired by broadleaf evergreens' soil in this period. On the contrary, low water availability limited soil respiration during summer in both ecosystems. The litter and fine root exclusion resulted in a 69.9\% and 38.7\% reduction in CO2 efflux in spring, for deciduous and evergreen oaks, respectively, verifying the important contribution of these organic inputs to soil respiration. However, it led to overestimation of soil respiration in summer and in the second year of the study, probably due to water retention. We developed a polynomial regression model that predicts CO2 efflux with soil temperature and water content as multipliers, and it is novel in including carbon fluxes of litterfall and fine root production as explanatory variables. The model predictions are good for broadleaf evergreen oaks (R2 = 0.64) and lower, but fair, for deciduous oaks (R2 = 0.48) and can efficiently illustrate how microclimate in combination with organic input and affects soil respiration. Our findings can improve our knowledge of soil CO2 effluxes and their drivers in typical oak-dominated Mediterranean ecosystems and support their climate-adapted management.JRC.D.3 - Land Resources and Supply Chain Assessment
On the impact of alternative processing on AERONET-OC LWN
No full textAccounting for advances in above-water radiometry and aiming at exploring their impact on actual field measurements to better support an informed exploitation in ocean color applications, this study investigated alternative processing solutions for the determination of the normalized water-leaving radiance LWN from the Ocean Color component of the Aerosol Robotic Network (AERONET-OC). The comparison of LWN from collocated above- and in-water reference data for a marine region exhibiting moderately optically complex waters emphasized the importance of applying (i) quality control tests to remove measurement sequences affected by environmental perturbations such as sun glint, (ii) spectral r factors determined accounting for the sole sky-glint contributions, and (iii) water-type specific corrections for bidirectional effects. A significant finding from those analyses was an appreciably better performance of r factors determined neglecting polarization with respect to those accounting for it. The work also revealed that the impact of the alternative processing solutions with respect to the basic AERONET-OC one is particularly significant in regions exhibiting optically complex waters. In specific, the results indicated a general increase of LWN spectral values from a few up to tens of percent for sites characterized by highly absorbing or scattering waters with differences generally enhanced by the application of r factors determined accounting for polarization effects. Overall, these results indicate that the adoption of any alternative method would suggest the need for further comprehensive assessments of above-water radiometry focusing on the impact of polarization effects across diverse optically complex waters and illumination conditions.JRC.D.2 - Ocean and Wate
Scientific, Technical and Economic Committee for Fisheries (STECF) – FDI methods (STECF-25-05)
Get PDFCommission Decision of 25 February 2016 setting up a Scientific, Technical and Economic Committee for Fisheries, C(2016) 1084, OJ C 74, 26.2.2016, p. 4–10. The Commission may consult the group on any matter relating to marine and fisheries biology, fishing gear technology, fisheries economics, fisheries governance, ecosystem effects of fisheries, aquaculture or similar disciplines. This report addresses the methodologies used by Member States in the preparation of the data for the FDI data call. This report has been reviewed by STECF during the 2025 summer plenary meeting.JRC.D.2 - Ocean and Wate
Resilience indicators for the EU natural gas system
No full textThe European Union’s natural gas policy has undergone a profound transformation since the energy crisis began in 2021. In response to supply disruptions and price volatility, policymakers swiftly expanded the existing 2017 security of supply framework by introducing a series of new regulations, aiming to provide a swift and coordinated EU reaction to the gas crisis. They supplemented the existing strategies of diversifying supply and improving infrastructure with several new measures, including optimizing storage utilization, reducing gas demand, and enhancing cooperation and solidarity among EU Member States. Four years after the start of the crisis, the natural gas system has stabilized to a new status quo, providing an opportunity to retrospectively analyze the system’s resilience to shocks. In this paper, we present the EU’s natural gas policy since the First Gas Directive, providing context and highlighting measurable policy targets. Based on this policy context, we then identify metrics to evaluate the resilience of the EU natural gas system from the perspectives of supply, demand, infrastructure, and prices. Finally, we analyze publicly available datasets on these resilience indicators to evaluate whether the system’s development over time aligns with the outcomes intended by policy and we demonstrate the suitability of these indicators to evaluate EU policy response and implementation. We conclude that the general development was in line with the intended policy trends.JRC.C.3 - Energy Security, Distribution and Market
Safe and Sustainable by Design Chemicals and Materials. Revised framework (2025)
Get PDFThe Safe and Sustainable by Design (SSbD) framework for chemicals and materials was proposed by the JRC in 2022, supporting the related European Commission Recommendation of 2022. Those have been tested in different contexts and by different stakeholders, providing indications towards an SSbD revision. This revised SSbD framework has the following main novel aspects:
1. It introduces the concept of “SSbD fundamentals”, as backbone of the framework, to enhance clarity.
2. Scoping analysis: The starting point of the assessment, which is the process of identifying and prioritising the key issues associated with a project which need to be assessed. As already been introduced in the methodological guidance, the scoping analysis is more specified and structured, towards defining scenarios to tailor the application of the SSbD. Emphasis is given to the importance of engaging with the actors along the life cycle. Methodological criteria are proposed to guide SSbD practitioner to the adherence to SSbD fundamentals.
3. New structure of the contents of the safety and sustainable assessment parts:
(a) The safety part is focused on the risk associated to the chemical/material and the related processes and uses, deriving from the combination of the evaluation of chemicals’ intrinsic properties and occupational/professional, consumer, and environmental exposure. The Steps 1, 2, 3 of the 2022 framework, are now merged in one safety part.
(b) Process-related risk throughout the supply chain part addresses aspects associated with the selected production processes to enable a comprehensive evaluation of alternative underpinning processes (e.g. different pathways to produce the same chemical/material).
(c) The environmental sustainability part addresses the entire life cycle of the chemical/material (raw materials, production, use, and disposal process) is assessed applying life cycle assessment. The part proposes screening level assessments and shortcuts to simplify the application at low TRLs, as well as benchmarks to facilitate the SSbD application.
(d) The socio-economic sustainability assessment part, which is significantly expanded compared with the 2022 framework, addresses the social fairness and competitiveness dimensions of the chemical/material supply chain. These include aspects related to supply chain vulnerabilities and life cycle costs, also linked to risk governance and financial stability.
4. Evaluation: The Framework proposes an approach to evaluate the implementation of the SSbD framework, to identify trade-offs between different aspects and uncertainties of the assessment according to the available information. An example of visualisation of the results of the evaluation is provided as a dashboard, serving as a compass to identify hotspots and critical elements to guide the innovation along the life cycle of chemicals and materials.
5. Documentation: The framework also includes a section on documentation, aiming at systematically and transparently recording the key elements for the implementation SSbD.JRC.D.3 - Land Resources and Supply Chain Assessment