The Civil Emergency Preparedness and Strategies Division contributes, within its area of responsibility, to the meeting of the Alliance’s overall strategic objectives and art. 3 and 5 of the Washington Treaty. The division cooperates with the Permanent Delegation of the Czech Republic to NATO in Brussels and maintains liaison officer to the permanent delegation at NATO. It keeps records of the documents from the NATO electronical evidence as well as secret classified NATO documents pursuant to the laws of the Czech Republic and instructions of the National Security Authority. It also processes required outputs (e.g. responses to NATO questionnaires, materials for meetings, opinions, positions of the Czech Republic, etc.) and contributes to the execution of the tasks related to the contact point for Euro-Atlantic Coordination Centre for dealing with emergencies (EADRCC).

ARTICLE 3
“In order more effectively to achieve the objectives of this Treaty, the Parties, separately and jointly, by means of continuous and effective self-help and mutual aid, will maintain and develop their individual and collective capacity to resist armed attack.“

ARTICLE 5
“The Parties agree that an armed attack against one or more of them in Europe or North America shall be considered an attack against them all and consequently they agree that, […] will assist the Party or Parties so attacked by taking forthwith, individually and in concert with the other Parties, such action as it deems necessary, including the use of armed force, to restore and maintain the security of the North Atlantic area. […] Such measures shall be terminated when the Security Council has taken the measures necessary to restore and maintain international peace and security.”

In particular this entails:

• national implementation of the NATO Political Guidance for Civil Emergency Planning,
• representation of the Czech Republic in the NATO Civil Emergency Planning Committee (CEPC) and the Civil Protection Group (CPG).

System of national coordination of NATO Civil Emergency Planning in the Czech Republic

SG – Secretary General

ASG/DASG – Assistant Secretary General / Deputy Assistant Secretary General

BRS – National Security Council

VCNP – Civil Emergency Planning Committee

The overall coordination of the NATO Civil Emergency Planning is facilitated by the Civil Emergency Planning Committee (CEPC). This Committee is the main advisory body for the North Atlantic Council (NAC) in the area of civil preparedness. It provides NATO with relevant expertise and civilian support for NATO’s objectives in the military domain but also in case of civilian crises (e.g. CRBN area or disaster response).

The Committee meets twice a year for a plenary session at the level of the heads of the national civil emergency planning organisations from NATO and partner countries.  In addition, it meets biweekly in permanent session, where countries are represented by their national delegations to NATO. In permanent session the Czech Republic is represented by MoI-DG FRS CZ liaison officer to the permanent delegation at NATO.

CEPC coordinates and provides direction and guidance for four specialised planning groups. These bring together national government, industry experts and military representatives to coordinate emergency planning in areas such as: civil protection; transport; industrial resources and communications; public health, food and water. Their primary purpose is to develop procedures for use in crisis situations. At the moment there is around 4 hundred civilian experts that provide expertise to the respective planning groups.

Since 1998 is the Euro-Atlantic Disaster Response Coordination Centre (EADRCC) NATO’s principal civil emergency response mechanism in the Euro-Atlantic area. It is active all year round, operational on a 24/7 basis, and involves NATO’s 29 Allies and all partner countries. The Centre functions as a clearing-house system for coordinating both requests and offers of assistance mainly in case of natural and man-made disasters. Its mandate was gradually broadened to cover also support to countries in case of terrorist attacks. The EADRCC was so far involved in more than 60 operations like floods, forest fires and earthquakes. The EADRCC also organises annual international exercise and maintains a list of national capabilities in case of a CRBN attack against civilian population.

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