THE EUROPEAN – SECURITY AND DEFENCE UNION
There are real threats and risks
The European Parliament View on CBRN Preparedness and Readiness by Ioan Mircea Paşcu MEP, Vice-Chairman AFET, European Parliament, Strasbourg/Brussels
Dr Ioan Mircea Paşcu MEP held a speech at the CATO Conference on 9/10 October 2013 in BONN underlining the importance for the European Union of the CATO security research project for future preparedness, readiness and cooperation in CBRN Protection. The CBRN threat is real and the risk associated with it is important, in spite of the apparent agreement between specialists that the use of such agents by terrorists is less attractive compared to the use of other conventional means, due to the difficulty of access to such CBRN agents.
Military versus civil preparedness This is due to the fact that CBRN weapons have been used in warfare and, consequently, played an important role during the Cold War, remaining part of state arsenals even today. This has created a paradox: in general, the protection against them is concentrated at the level of the military, while the probability of their active employment today is higher in the civilian sphere; consequently standards, equipment, training and readiness differ between the military and civilian “first responders”. In consequence, there is a need to raise the performance level of civilian “first responders” to bring it closer to that of the military ones, and to integrate the latter into the response to civilian CBRN incidents, achieving an efficient continuum with the civilian response to them. It should be stressed that when classic deterrence is inapplicable, given the very nature of the actors involved – namely terrorists ready to die to accomplish their “mission” – a new form of deterrence, based primarily on the effectiveness of the
Dr Ioan Mircea Paşcu Dr Ioan Mircea Paşcu was born in 1949 in Satu Mare, Romania. 1980 Ph.D. in Political Science from the Institute of Political Science; 1989–1992 Member of Provisional Council for National Unity and Presidential Councillor as Head of the Foreign Policy Direction; 1993 State Secretary MOD Bucharest; 1996 MP and Chairman of the Defence and Home Affairs Committee; 2000 Minister of Defence; 2005 Observer to the European Parliament; 2007 Member of the European Parliament and Vice-President of the Foreign Affairs Committee and Member of the Strategic Advisory Board of the US Atlantic Committee. His last book: “Battle for NATO − a personal account”, Bucharest 2007, 326 p.
54
response, should be given pre-eminence, thus offering also the indispensable guarantee of defence, in case deterrence fails …
The Golden Hour Since time is of the essence – see the importance of the “golden hour” derived from actual battlefield experience – in parallel to trying to orchestrate a common response at the level of the EU, one should also make sure that the local response is adequate, timely and effective! This does not mean that one should favour local over community efforts – not at all – but rather that the latter’s role should concentrate on monitoring, early warning, common training, facilitation of interaction and, most importantly, dealing with the effects of a CBRN attack on any of its members.
The contribution of the European Parliament The EP’s main contribution is “The Report on strengthening chemical, biological, radiological and nuclear security in the European Union – an EU CBRN Action Plan” written by my colleague, Ms Ana Gomes, for the Committee on Civil Liberties, Justice and Home Affairs in 2010 (A7-0349/2010). In this report the Rapporteur points to the new division of competences between the EU and the Member States (MS) resulting from the Lisbon Treaty and reflected in the plan. It calls for a strengthened common approach to CBRN through the creation of a mechanism for compulsory assistance in the event of a CBRN disaster. We noted with astonishment that in addressing the issue, the European Council did not make any reference to the Lisbon Treaty’s Solidarity Clause …. The MS should do more than sharing best practices and the EU should establish a European civil protection force. Also, the Report notes both that the Commission failed to ensure the replacement by the industry of high-risk chemicals with lowerrisk alternatives – thus eliminating a potential source of supply for terrorists/disaster – and that the final version of the CBRN Action Plan adopted by the Council in November 2009 was a watered-down version of the draft presented to it in June 2009.
The Importance of CBRN research In its Report on the EU CBRN Action Plan the European Parliament underlined the need to provide the requisite research and development funding in order to ensure the implementa-
