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Securing chemical, biological, radiological and nuclear materials

Over the last decades, most terrorist attacks were carried out with the help of conventional means, such as firearms and explosives. Nevertheless, it does not seem impossible that terrorist organisations might eventually turn to unconventional weapons, such as chemical, biological, radiological or nuclear (CBRN) materials, thus potentially causing a high number of casualties and extensive socio-economic damage.

Strengthening CBRN security

Securing CBRN materials has been part of the Commission's activities since 2006. Following the 2009 final report of the CBRN Task Force, which involved experts from public and private sectors, the Commission presented a Communication on strengthening CBRN security in the EU, including an EU CBRN Action Plan.

CBRN Action Plan

The CBRN Action Plan consists of 130 actions. Its main objective is to complement national measures that address existing gaps and promote exchanges of information and best practices. Taking into account the number of actions and the level of ambition of the Action Plan, it will set the political agenda in this field for the next three to five years.

The Action Plan focuses on three main strands:

  • Prevention: ensuring that unauthorised access to CBRN materials of concern is as difficult as possible.
  • Detection: having the capacity to detect CBRN materials in order to prevent or respond to CBRN incidents.
  • Preparedness and response: being able to efficiently respond to incidents involving CBRN materials and to recover from them as quickly as possible.

The implementation of the Action Plan is a key part of the EU Internal Security Strategy in Action.

Civil protection

In order to assist the Commission in its tasks, a CBRN Advisory Group was established in 2010, with a composition similar to that of the CBRN Task Force. In addition, the Commission has developed an EU CBRN Resilience Programme to improve CBRN work within the framework of the Civil Protection Mechanism. Its objective is to ensure better links between different civil protection activities in the field of CBRN and to tackle identified gaps in a coherent way.