© HCPN
On 19 and 20 October, the representatives of the national crisis centres of Luxembourg, Belgium, and the Netherlands gathered in Luxembourg for a workshop entitled “Lessons learned from the Covid-19 pandemic”.
The Benelux Secretary General Alain de Muyser and High Commissioner for National Security Luc Feller were also present.
In his welcome address, Feller recalled the 30 months of crisis management since March 2020 and warned that “the virus will remain – until proven otherwise – a reality.” More recently, the authorities also had to deal with the energy crisis triggered by the Russian invasion of Ukraine. According to Feller, the key word for the coming months is “anticipation” in order to prepare the actors involved in crisis management for all possible scenarios, particularly in order to manage situations that could affect “our societies in depth.”
The workshop focused on three topics in particular: The impact of the pandemic on the organisation of crisis management structures, the critical role of logistics and the importance of developing future resilient strategic stocks, and, finally, the epidemiological surveillance of Covid-19 and, more specifically, the means of monitoring the spread and impact of the epidemic in the general population.
Benelux Secretary General Alain de Muyser concluded the workshop by saying: “The ambition is now to optimise the flow of information between crisis centres and to complement actions between neighbours in order to ensure a harmonised response to future crises with possible cross-border effects.”