The European Commission and the High Representative, Kaja Kallas, launched the ‘Preparedness Union Strategy’ on Wednesday 26 March to enhance the European Union’s capability to prevent and respond to emerging threats.
These threats can be natural or man-made disasters (industrial accidents, technological failures, pandemics), hybrid threats (cyber attacks, disinformation campaigns) or geopolitical crises.
The Strategy will aim to improve coordination between Member States to help them in their national preparedness efforts. It is also intended to become a crisis survival guide for EU citizens.
“It’s about (...) entering into an approach (...) that is about forecasting, about anticipating risk, about prevention, about information, about education, about preparation, and then in the end about crisis management and crisis response, better performed”, explained the Executive Vice-President of the European Commission, Roxana Mînzatu. In her view, “the COVID pandemic has shown that the added value of acting together in solidarity, in coordination, in the European Union framework (...) makes us more efficient, that it makes us stronger”.
To this end, the European Commission has announced the creation of a new EU crisis coordination hub, which will be responsible for supporting Member States in managing today’s crises.
“Being prepared is different for every country. There is no ‘one size fits all’”, explained the European Commissioner for Preparedness, Hadja Lahbib.
The priorities. The European Commission has identified seven areas for action, with proposed solutions in each of them. These will include: - strengthening the EU’s capacity to identify and analyse emerging risks and threats (foresight and anticipation); - ensuring the continuity of essential services and infrastructure, such as healthcare, transport, drinking water and telecommunications in the event of a crisis (resilience of vital societal functions); - enabling citizens to prepare themselves; - improving public-private cooperation; - strengthening cooperation between the civilian and military sectors to meet security challenges; - improving coordination in the event of a crisis; - working with international partners.
Practical solutions. The European Commission wants to launch an EU-wide stockpiling strategy to strengthen access to critical resources in the event of a climate crisis or disaster. This will include critical raw materials, energy equipment, shelter, agri-food products and water. Centralised reserves will be stored in “confidential locations” across the EU “with contributions from the Member States”, explained Hadja Lahbib. This initiative will be supplemented by contingency stocks as part of the recent draft legislation on critical medicines.
Furthermore, as the initial period is “the most critical”, in the event of extreme disruption, the Commission will be proposing guidelines to the Member States to ensure that the population is self-sufficient for at least 72 hours. A guide could help EU citizens put together a ‘survival kit’, along the lines of initiatives taken in Finland, Sweden, Denmark and, soon, France (see EUROPE 13607/12).
“We need to talk to our citizens, all generations, all households, those that are vulnerable”, said Roxana Mînzatu. This will include empowering citizens “to take proactive measures to prepare for crises, such as developing family contingency plans and stockpiling essential supplies”, the ‘Strategy’ states.
An annex to the proposed strategy also lists an example of 60 key actions that Member States are invited to carry out.
A global plan. The ‘Preparedness Union Strategy’ is expected to permeate all EU legislation, policies and programmes. The European Commission has warned that progress reports on the implementation of the legislation will be “regularly shared with the Council and the European Parliament”.
See the ‘Strategy’: https://aeur.eu/f/g4e
See the annex document: https://aeur.eu/f/g4p (Original version in French by Florent Servia)