The July 2021 flood disaster caused extensive property damage and deaths in the Meuse-Rhine Euroregion (EMR), the area where EMRIC services are responsible for crisis management and disaster response, among others. At the request of the partner organizations of the EMRIC network, ITEM conducted research within the framework of the INTERREG Project MAHRETAK on the requirements of cross-border crisis management in the event of the 2021 flood. EMRIC is a unique partnership of public agencies responsible for firefighting, technical assistance, emergency response, infectious disease and disaster and crisis management in their areas. While specific areas of emergency response and disaster management are already coordinated in EMRIC, flooding as a crisis goes beyond EMRIC cooperation and requires the combination of national, regional and Euroregional levels. The purpose of the study was to examine the current situation of crisis management at the administrative and political level across the border and to discuss recommendations for the partners of this INTERREG project that could improve cross-border crisis management in the Euregio Meuse-Rhine in the future.
Findings
In previous crisis scenarios, it was often assumed that in case of a disaster at one of the EMRIC partners in a region, actors on the other side of the border from the neighbouring region could help. Thus, cross-border assistance exists where it is needed. The July 2021 flood crisis, more or less like COVID-19, was different: it affected the regions simultaneously. This simultaneity highlighted the need for new considerations on cross-border crisis management. In particular, issues of improved information, communication and coordination of measures emerge. In view of the flood, the network lacked the integration of the relevant services of water and flood protection and therefore, unlike, for example, “natural fires” or “radiation accidents”, there were no special agreements or working groups. Due to the simultaneous deployment of emergency services, the crisis situation was less about mutual assistance than about information, coordination and consultation with a view to individual measures by the individual crisis teams.
In many individual discussions with EMRIC partners, who brought experiences from the work of the respective crisis teams, it emerged that it was precisely the INTERREG MAHRETAK project that raised essential issues corresponding to perceived shortcomings in cross-border crisis management. These ranged from better exchange of weather data, more extensive cross-border application of information and communication systems, handling of different emergency plans to the issue of better communication between crisis teams at the administrative level. To improve communication at the level of political administrators, ways to improve the coordination and communication of crisis teams across borders were discussed with all stakeholders.
A key recommendation of the ITEM study is that it does not make sense to create a cross-border administrative crisis team, but rather an innovative tool can be proposed in the form of a “crisis team linkage.” The term “coupling,” as in the case of fire hoses, can vividly facilitate cross-border cooperation without harmonizing national systems. Such a crisis team link should always be established under the umbrella of EMRIC when, as in the case of the floods, it is less about mutual assistance but more about information and consultation in the event of a crisis. If possible, it should even facilitate the coordination of measures and also contribute to joint crisis communication through better coordinated risk assessments (one of Marhetak’s products), which should lead to the avoidance of negative cross-border effects.
For this, an EMRIC agreement for “crisis team linkage” should establish an escalation model that also triggers a structured linkage of political administrators in the partner regions in case of certain dangerous situations. Although EMRIC set up a tool for this case with the liaison model, the appointment of liaisons per partner institution, it turned out that it was not sufficiently known or not always fully utilized. A “crisis team linkage” can build on this model. In particular, it should enable individual EMRIC partners to request the establishment of a crisis team link at very short notice if there are uncertainties regarding the procedure and situation in the partner regions cross-border crisis management in the event of flooding in the Euregio Meuse-Rhine.
