8th PPRD South 'prevention and preparedness' workshop for staff-level officials

Background

For three days, 20 experts from the Civil Protection Authorities and line ministries of 10 Mediterranean and Balkan countries will gather on the southern coast of Cyprus where, on 11 July 2011 a massive munitions blast at the Evangelos Florakis naval base killed 13 people and caused great damage to the island's largestpower station thus limiting severely the supply of water and electricity. To mitigate the consequences, the Cypriot Civil Defence requested international assistance through the network of the European Civil Protection Authorities asking for electricity generators and for support in assessing the damage of the power station and its further restoration.

The overall purpose of the workshop is to contribute to raising awareness of societal dependency upon critical facilities – and of the diverse possible impacts of such failures on citizens and businesses – and improving knowledge of good practices and lessons learned from previous experiences within disaster management authorities and relevant stakeholders at large in mitigating the impacts of disasters related to critical facilities' failure, and planning for emergency preparedness – including contingency planning – and business continuity. In addition, the workshop will aim to increase awareness in the Partner Countries of the EU approach to "critical infrastructure protection" (i.e. Council Directive 2008/114/EC on the "identification and designation of European critical infrastructures and the assessment of the need to improve their protection").