Crisis management in Europe: a comparative study

22nd January 2014

Colleagues from TNO from the IFV institute have compared several EU countries to check what the differences and matches are in crisis mitigation and preparation. In general, there are clear differences between European countries in preparing for, and the management at the time of crises and the willingness to learn from these. However, differences are mainly due to the characteristics of the countries concerned (risk level, population, establishment of administrative system).

The differences in approaches seem to be slowly converging. In all countries, there is a trend towards increased crisis planning by different crisis organisations. Furthermore, there has been a declining importance of the Civil Protection systems that were present during the Cold War period. The role of daily care in non -routine situations becomes increasingly important: for instance, the approach of the 2009 pandemic shows great similarities between countries. However, the Netherlands is unique with the recently formed security regions and the emergency medical services. Also get the multidisciplinary and evaluating and learning from incidents more attention here than in most other countries. Alternatively, other countries expect a greater degree self-reliance of citizens and, in both the planning and response, a closer involvement of stakeholders.

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