The European Union (EU) successfully held a two-day joint exercise to test the 27-member bloc's Emergency and Crisis Coordination Arrangements in Brussels on Thursday and Friday, a EU statement announced.
The main aim of the exercise, code-named CCAEX07, was to test the arrangements to respond quickly and efficiently to a crisis at EU level and the capacity of the EU Council and the European Commission to jointly support member states' crisis response efforts, according to the joint statement issued by the council, the commission and the EU presidency.
"The results confirmed that the arrangements are appropriate. The lessons learned will allow them to be improved further," said the statement.
Based on a totally fictitious scenario, the exercise assumed a simultaneous terrorist attack in certain EU member states perpetrated with a single bio-agent. It focused on managing the consequences of such an attack at EU level.
The theme of a biological attack was chosen because one of the priorities of the EU's Portuguese presidency is to reinforce national and European actions to prevent and contain biological terrorist attacks, said the statement.
The Permanent Representatives Committee of the EU Council will do a preliminary evaluation of the exercise on Sept. 19, and will be presented with a draft evaluation report one month later.
On June 1, 2006, the EU Council approved interim Crisis Coordination Arrangements (CCA) in Brussels. The arrangements are part of the EU's crisis management mechanisms.
The CCA provides member states' permanent representatives in Brussels with a platform for exchanging information and coordinating action, in the context of an emergency or crisis whose nature is deemed to be sufficiently serious to require an exceptional response at EU level in close cooperation with member states.
In setting up these arrangements, the EU council invited its secretariat, in collaboration with the European Commission, to hold regular exercises to test the adequacy and efficiency of the CCA internal procedures.
Source: Xinhua
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