PhD. Liviu Mureşan, Executive President EURISC Foundation
Starting with this New Year 2011, we have the chance to better prepare ourselves for this challenging security environment.
Based on the Directive 2008/114 the European Union, including Romania as a member state, has dedicated the attention to critical infrastructures in energy and transportation.
This is a first step in a step-by-step approach to identify and designate European Critical Infrastructures and assess the need to improve their protection as was stated years ago by the European Programme for critical infrastructure protection, referring to other vital and critical sectors as IT, water and food supply, health, finance, defense, public order, national security, administrator, nuclear chemicals, space.
We had the chance to discover, from the very first days of this year the tangibles and intangibles of the food security and the price to be paid for ignoring early warnings and vulnerabilities in several countries. So the understanding of this problem is also business continuity and quality of life.
Transportation in general and “railroad community” more specific, are a result of interdependencies, of System-of-Systems evolving into a System-of-Systems-of-Systems, well known as mega systems, obliging us to think “outside the box”.
The new generation of infrastructures will be constructed upon the existing ones, however the services, architecture, business models and attributes of those newly developed systems will signify a qualitative leap forward, and not just more of the same, is underlining Prof. Adrian Gheorghe.
“Thinking the Unthinkable” is not a sophisticated theoretical approach, but also a chance to do more with less, including a better use of financial means, human resources and opportunities.
We have to think how to use the European money and to shift from opportunities to spend to the chance to invest in long terms projects as part of a vision, and so, to put back Romania on “the map” including in the railroad domain.
This year we must be more open not only to Western partners and investors but also prepared to work with new ones from China, Central Asia or Gulf area.
The year 2011 could be the year of a new thinking for political decision makers to support “the national champions” the Romanian public and private companies in their endeavors, at home as well as abroad.
Starting “to think the unthinkable” and to act strategically is an effort to be done in the context of a sustainable development of our country, including a national debate about “reinventing Romania”, with a new capital – Alba Iulia – as a chance to reframe the existing and the new infrastructures.
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