Nannette Bühl-Cazaubon, Paris

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 ma - jor 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

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 Scien ces 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

technology to exploit synergies as far as possible. When we consider crisis management, we should take into account the increasing pressure on EU civil security authorities to safeguard citizen’s security, as well as the limited resources, budgetary cutbacks and a broad spectrum of potential threats. It seems more than logical that modern simulation tech nology which proved its worth in the mi li tary sector, could also provide decisive sup port for crisis management in Europe: simulation technology offers the possibility to repli cate the complexity of the real world in a digi t i zed one, including e.g. the replication of a region with its topography, climate, infrastructure, population, civil protection organisations with the available emergency response capacities, etc. It allows then to assume any crisis situation or disaster event and to investigate e. g. the consequences for the affected population and the critical infrastructures in the region. In this way crisis managers will be able to understand interdependencies more easily, to test respective response plans and to identify possible consequences of their actions and decisions. Furthermore, simulation technology could be an enabling factor to gather European crisis managers in order to train them in realistic cross-border scenarios on how to co-operate most efficiently to manage in a coordinated way all kinds of crisis situations. The idea of a European Crisis Management Planning & Training Network One of the key elements of the European Commission’s Communication from last year, “Towards a stronger European disaster response: the role of civil protection and humanitarian assistance”, was setting up a European Emergency Response Centre which should be responsible for the coordination of the EU’s civilian disaster response. The Centre should serve as a platform for a more efficient EU response by collecting information on disasters, monitoring hazards, preparing scenarios and coordinating the EU’s disaster response efforts. But on the industry side, there is the idea that the EU could make even a further step: The idea is that the Union should develop its own simulation capacity by creating a kind of “European Crisis Management Planning & Training Network”, which would technically and conceptually network all European crisis management competencies to enable joint planning and training. The core element could be a EU Simulation Competence Centre which would coordinate EU-wide simulation-related activities. Under this view, the EU will either conduct its own simulationassisted training courses or will support EU Member States in the conception of such courses. Under the guidance of this Centre, impacts on the EU’s critical infrastructures and citizens could be investigated to identify measures of prevention and appropriate emergency response plans. And in crisis situations, the Center could provide simulation-based forecasts on the course of disasters and evaluate respective EU counter - measures. Red Cross crisis management personal in a computerbased simulation crisis management exercise Photo: CAE

News: A new civil-military culture in German crisis prevention

German Armed Forces’ simulation technology will be used by German Federal Office for Civil Protection and Disaster Assistance (BBK)

On 6 April, the German Federal Office for Civil Protection and Disaster Assistance (BBK) and the German Armed Forces Support Command (SKUKdo) jointly presented the application of simulation technology for future civil protection exercises.

The German Armed Forces originally developed the computer-based simulation programme SIRA (based on the Simulation soft - ware GESI) for army-tactical education and training, which means that the German Armed Forces use SIRA for training military commanders and staff without expensive deployment of forces and resources.

In February 2011, the BBK and the German Armed Forces agreed on jointly using SIRA in the scope of long-standing civil-military co - operation. The cooperation also includes joint further development of the software. Ulrich Aderhold, Managing Director of CAE Elektronik GmbH, the company which developed the GESI simulation software, explained that for his company this agreement “sets the course for GESI in the civilian sector.” He added that the current catastrophes have shown just how important foresighted safety provisions and efficient crisis management are and that with the help of this simulation system, operation headquarters and staff can, in complex exercises, receive optimal preparation for all conceivable danger scenarios.