Paper Titles & Abstracts

As EU Member-States have to cope with increasingly more transboundary crises and disasters, their civil security systems must interact in an effective and timely manner. The EU institutions have greatly facilitated efforts of the MS to reach interstate cooperation so as to tackle natural disasters, epidemics, terrorist challenges that defy national borders in Europe. The creation of the European Civil Protection Mechanism and the Solidarity Clause of Lisbon Treaty have paved the way for more substantial cooperation and coordination of the MS in civil crisis management. Yet there is a strong perception by experts that "not one civil protection system fits all". There is hence considerable tension between the aims of the EU internal security strategy (ISS) and the day-to-day practices in national civil security systems.The task of the proposed paper is to explore how the national practices in civil security tally with the ISS aims. It is part of an FP7 project on civil security systems in Europe (ANVIL Project), which draws upon analysis of official documents and secondary literature on crises and disasters in the United Kingdom and Ireland, and a series of interviews with government officials and experts working in this field. A main objective of the exercise will be to evaluate the practical obstacles and feasibilities the EU is facing in order to employ a harmonised civil crisis management as the cornerstone to build an even more binding and tighter EU Internal Security Strategy.