THE EUROPEAN – SECURITY AND DEFENCE UNION
The European Union has to develop an EU Crisis Management Planning and Training Network
Training and preparedness − key elements for EU crisis and disaster management by Nannette Bühl-Cazaubon, Journalist, Paris
During the last year, the EU started an important process of developing adequate tools to support and coordinate European civilian crisis and disaster management. This process seeks to make European humanitarian assistance and crisis response activities as effective as possible. The process should strengthen disaster preparedness, prevention and response efficiency and enhance coordination with EU partners on the ground. Against this background, preparedness and training become a key element of effective European civilian crisis and disaster management capability. During the last two years, we saw a series of particularly severe natural disasters, ranging from flash floods and storms in Western Europe, large-scale floods in Central Europe and volcanic ash clouds after the eruption in Iceland, to the earthquake in Haiti and the nuclear disaster following the recent earthquake in Japan. Furthermore, we should not forget that governments in Europe are more than ever faced with the challenge of protecting their populations and critical infrastructures against the growing and diversifying range of threats posed by terrorist activities.
Computer-based simulation has proven its worth already in the military sector... A coordinated management is indispensable when it comes to cross-border disasters affecting more than one EU Member State. These days, crisis and disaster management missions have become a complex task with a wide range of scenarios and a large variety of actors involved on the ground (civilian and military). Such complex missions need a comprehensive approach taking into account military and civilian elements for more integrated missions. The EU has a wide range of instruments for responding to major disasters, including using Member States’ civil protection assets through the EU Civil Protection Mechanism and providing humanitarian assistance to victims of natural disasters outside of the EU. But the increase of both natural and manmade major disasters during the last few years made clear that existing structures have to be strengthened. That is why last year, the EU kicked off an important process of developing adequate tools to support and coordinate European civilian crisis and disaster management. In this field, given the complexity of possible scenarios for crisis management, computer-
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Nannette Bühl-Cazaubon has been Editorial Deputy for the magazine The European − Security and Defence Union since 2010. She is an independent journalist specialised in the field of Security and Defence. She was born in 1968 and grew up in Germany and in France. She studied literature at the University of Bonn and later Political Sciences in Paris at the Institut d’Etudes Politiques de Paris (IEP). Before becoming a journalist, she worked as independent conference lecturer for different German political foundations and the German Bundestag. She lives in Paris since 1998, where she first worked for two years as editorial assistant for the German magazine Der Spiegel. Since 2003 she has been special correspondent of the German Publishing Group Mönch, and since 2008 she also works for the CSDP focused information service of the Brussels based office of Copura GmbH.
based simulation technologies appear as interesting and effective tools allowing for preparation, training and coordination. Simulation allows to identify and understand key factors, interactions and interdependencies of processes in the real world and to create corresponding models in a virtual world. In the military sector, computer-based simulation tools have proved their worth in training management and active staff. The German Armed Forces e.g. have been using a command and staff training simulation (called SIRA) for more than 15 years, and another five European countries use this system as well. SIRA is based on the simulation software GESI, which has been developed by CAE Elektronik GmbH, a subsidiary of CAE Inc., based in Canada and a worldwide leader in the fields of simulation and modelling technologies.
... is decisive for European civil crisis management While in the military sector simulation has a long history, within the civil protection domain simulation for civilian crisis management is still a newly emerging technology. But recently, the German Armed Forces and the German Federal Office for Civil Protection and Disaster Assistance (BKK) agreed on jointly using SIRA in the scope of long-standing civil-military cooperation (see News p. 49). This cooperation also in a way represents an important step in bridging gaps between civilian and military crisis management. This cooperation even includes coordination on future developments of simulation
