Emergency circumstances

Notwithstanding the provisions of this Decision, the specific procedures described below may be applied in an emergency, such as during impending or actual crisis, conflict, war situations or in exceptional operational circumstances. EUCI may be transmitted using cryptographic products which have been approved for a lower classification level or without encryption with the consent of the competent authority if any delay would cause harm clearly outweighing the harm entailed by any disclosure of the classified material and if: the sender and recipient do not have the required encryption facility or have no encryption facility; and the classified material cannot be conveyed in time by other means. Classified information transmitted under the circumstances set out in paragraph 39 shall not bear any markings or indications distinguishing it from information which is unclassified or which can be protected by an available cryptographic product. Recipients shall be notified of the classification level, without delay, by other means. Should recourse be made to paragraph 39 a subsequent report shall be made to the competent authority and to the Security Committee.

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Source: EUR-Lex (Cellar) · retrieved 2026-11-01 · Text as adopted (Official Journal); later amendments are not incorporated in this text.