1.   A CSD shall identify critical utilities providers and critical service providers that may pose risks to CSD's operations due to its dependency on them.

2.   A CSD shall take appropriate actions to manage the dependencies referred to in paragraph 1 through adequate contractual and organisational arrangements, as well as through specific provisions in its business continuity policy and disaster recovery plan, before any relationship with those providers becomes operational.

3.   A CSD shall ensure that its contractual arrangements with any providers identified in accordance with paragraph 1 require a prior approval of the CSD for the service provider to further subcontract any elements of the services provided to the CSD.

Where the service provider outsources its services in accordance with the first subparagraph, the CSD shall ensure that the level of service and its resilience is not impacted and full access by the CSD to the information necessary for the provision of the outsourced services is preserved.

4.   A CSD shall establish clear lines of communication with the providers referred to in paragraph 1 to facilitate the exchange of information in both ordinary and exceptional circumstances.

5.   A CSD shall inform its competent authority about any dependencies on utilities and service providers identified under paragraph 1 and take measures to ensure that authorities can obtain information about the performance of those providers, either directly from utilities or service providers or through the CSD.