The Farnesina Crisis Unit is hosting a meeting today of the heads of the analogous facilities of the 28 EU Member States and officials of the EU External Action Service and the EU Commission. The aim is to facilitate the exchange of information among Member States in an effort to avert or reduce threats to the security of their citizens in increasingly global and transversal risk situations.
First European Presidency to convene European facility heads
This is the first duty EU Presidency to convene a meeting of European Crisis Unit and other Brussels institution heads for the purpose of outlining the Union’s increasingly coordinated and integrated response to the challenges to EU Security posed by emergency situations around the world.
Coordination, procedural harmonisation and shared operational standards
The aim of the meeting is to identify common standards for providing information to travellers (businesspersons, humanitarian and cooperation workers, tourists), offering assistance and managing crises involving European citizens through the use of procedures as predefined and coordinated as possible.
By means of a computerised system managed from Brussels and fed by all 28 Crisis Units, each Member State will be able to share information on various areas in the world with other countries in real time, and to formulate specific security advisories regarding their respective nationals. A continuous exchange that, in addition to increasing traveller/resident awareness of security risk factors in the countries they are visiting, will facilitate Europe’s coordinated emergency response.
Coordination, procedural harmonisation and common and consensual operational crisis management standards will make it possible to provide EU citizens with more efficient information, advisories and security in the case of their being involved in critical events such as international terrorism, socio-political tensions, natural disasters or pandemics.
