One year after the flood disaster in Rheinpfalz and North Rhine-Westphalia, Federal Minister of the Interior Nancy Feaser promised a comprehensive new start in civil protection. At a press conference in Berlin, the SPD politician promised “better coordination, better communication, better cooperation” – “at all levels”. The whole country had felt safe for too long, and Faeser promised that that would change in response to the flood disaster. She is not concerned with disputes over competences and assigning blame, now it can and will only be about doing everything necessary from the catastrophe in order to be in a completely different position in case of recurrence.
Faeser defined four goals as a task for himself and all those responsible at federal, state and local level: Always prepared; early warning; acting efficiently and shouldering the reconstruction together. For this purpose, the new joint competence center was founded weeks ago. “The protection of the population is finally as important as it should have been,” said Faeser.
The new President of the Federal Office for Civil Protection and Disaster Assistance (BBK), Ralph Tiesler, believes that certain areas in Germany are no longer habitable due to extreme weather events. “As a civil protection advocate, I say that some areas should not be resettled due to climate change and the acute threat of storms and floods.” Tiesler is possibly alluding to exposed spots in river valleys that have an extremely high risk of flooding during heavy rain events.
The question also arises on the coasts as to where residential buildings can and cannot be built, Tiesler told the newspapers of the Funke media group against the background of the annual flood disaster in Rhineland-Palatinate and North Rhine-Westphalia. “And there is no place or area in Germany where we don’t have to take a close look.”
Tiesler has been in office for a month. His authority, which reports to the Federal Ministry of the Interior, has been criticized several times in recent years, for example because of warnings in an emergency flyer to the population that were perceived as too alarmist, which food should be kept in stock at home in the event of a crisis. Federal Minister of the Interior Nancy Faeser (SPD) had dem mirror saidin view of the war in Ukraine, the wording in the emergency guide was inappropriate and caused uncertainty among people.
Ralph Tiesler heads the Federal Office for Civil Protection and Disaster Assistance in Bonn.
(Photo: Carsten Koall/picture alliance/dpa)
Tiesler nevertheless calls for the population to be made more aware. You have to better involve people in disaster control exercises. What that could look like in concrete terms needs to be discussed. “We don’t see the population as extras, but as actors on an equal footing who do something for their own protection,” said Tiesler last weekend Rheinische Post said.
On the anniversary of the flood disaster that killed 135 people in Rhineland-Palatinate and 49 in North Rhine-Westphalia a year ago, Tiesler cited a lack of cooperation between central offices as the main reason for the “huge deficits in crisis management”. Those responsible learned from this and set up the Joint Competence Center for Civil Protection at the Federal Office in order to bring everyone together. What is new is that partners from various levels are permanently represented at the competence center and jointly provide for the future. The BBK boss also calls for more money and jobs for his authority. The tasks have grown dramatically with the recent crises such as floods, droughts, Covid and currently the war in Ukraine.
According to the BBK boss, a new awareness of the crisis among the population is necessary. “The crisis mode must now be part of general awareness, we must learn that the crisis is part of everyday life.” Federal Interior Minister Faeser wants to speak on civil protection on Wednesday in Berlin on the occasion of the anniversary together with Tiesler and the President of the Federal Agency for Technical Relief, Gerd Friedsam.