On Thursday 22 May, the Benelux countries, the Baltic states, Finland and Sweden announced the launch of a European Coalition for Civil Preparedness and Resilience to prepare and ensure the resilience of the population in the event of hybrid threats and/or natural disasters.
“Our strength is not only measured in our ability to defend ourselves militarily, but in the resilience of our communities, our institutions, and our people, irrespective of the crisis or threat”, stated the relevant ministers of the eight EU countries in a joint declaration.
They announced the establishment of a joint agenda for the implementation of measures using a whole-of-society approach in the following areas: - empowering citizens; carry out overarching EU comprehensive risk and threats assessment; - improving horizontal crisis management; - strengthening the protection of critical infrastructure; - exploring new ways to help bolster the coordination of civilian and military efforts.
To see the joint declaration from the eight countries: https://aeur.eu/f/gzt (Original version in French by Mathieu Bion)