Brussels ask EU citizens to prepare a 72-hour emergency kit for crises

The emergency kit should include food, water, and copies of important identity documents, among other items.

The EU wants every member state to develop a 72-hour survival kit for citizens to face any new crisis that might emerge as part of its Preparedness Union Strategy which also calls for more stockpiling of essential supplies and for improved civilian-military cooperation.

The strategy unveiled on Wednesday by the European Commission includes a list of 30 concrete actions it says EU member states need to take to boost their preparedness against potential future crises ranging from natural disasters and industrial accidents to attacks by malicious actors in the cyber or military domains.

“In the EU we must think different, because the threats are different, we must think bigger because the threats are bigger too,” Hadja Lahbib, the Commissioner for humanitarian aid and crisis management, told reporters.

Roxana Mînzatu, the Commission for preparedness, speaking alongside her, added that the bloc is “not starting from scratch”.

“The COVID pandemic has shown that the added value of acting together in solidarity in coordination, in the European Union framework is absolutely crucial, This is what makes us more efficient, makes us stronger,” she said.

One of the key areas identified is the need to enhance population preparedness with the Commission urging member states to ensure citizens have an emergency kit that allows them to be self-sufficient for a minimum of 72 hours in the event they are cut off from essential supplies.

Several member states already have such guidelines with varying timeframes. France, for instance, calls for a 72-hour survival kit that includes food, water, medicines, a portable radio, a flashlight, spare batteries, chargers, cash, copies of important documents including medical prescriptions, spare keys, warm clothes and basic tools such as utility knives.

The Commission’s plan aims to harmonise guidelines across the 27 member states in order to make sure that “everyone, at different levels have, to put it this way, a manual of what to do when the sirens go off,” said a senior EU official, speaking on condition of anonymity.

“The level of preparedness across the Union, across different member states is very different. Preparedness is definitely understood in different ways across member states,” the same official added.

Increased stockpiles

Another key focus of the strategy is to increase stockpiling of essential equipment and supplies, medical countermeasures such as vaccines, medicines and medical equipment, critical raw materials so industrial production or strategic equipment can continue, and energy equipment.

Brussels has already put forward over the past few weeks proposals to boost the stockpiling of critical medicines and essential minerals, a competence that lies with member states.

The Preparedness strategy aims to “bring this together and to identify how the stockpiles interact, what are the common experiences to learn from each other,” another senior EU official, also speaking on condition of anonymity, said.

This could entail developing more stockpiles at the EU level for civil protection that would add to existing stocks from the RescEU mechanism. But “some of these could be at national level, some of them are virtual, basically agreements with the private sector, some of them are physical”.

“That’s a discussion we need to have: what’s the best possible configuration to guarantee the ultimate objective of continuation of these vital societal functions under all circumstances,” the official added.

Addressing ‘blind spots’ in responding to crises

Improving cooperation between civilian and military authorities in the event of a crisis is also identified as a key priority. The Commission said it will establish a civil-military preparedness framework with clear roles and responsibilities and has called for regular exercises to be carried out to test best practices.

“We have plenty of examples, unfortunately, in real life, of what kind of threat we need to be prepared (for),” one of the officials quoted above said, including acts of sabotage, disinformation campaigns, and cyberattacks.

Identifying the roles of the civilian and military authorities is a process that has already started, the official added, citing sabotage acts in the Baltic Sea.

“We are now analysing how we are reacting and where are the blind spots, where we could be more efficient, where we could be swifter, what else we could do,” they added.

All of this work will be underpinned by a new EU crisis coordination hub, and by a risks and threats assessment, the first of which is to be released in late 2026.

Quizzed on why the EU executive needs over a year to produce this document, one of the officials said that that it’s a “complex” process with “lots of contributions from member states feeding” into it and other sectorial analyses released on different timeframes.

“To bring this together, to analyse this, and to produce a document that is digestible and provides added value, it needs a bit of time. That’s why we wouldn’t want to do this in a number of weeks, because there’s a risk that something is overlooked (…) and some pieces of analysis and information is missing,” they said.

The Commission will in the meantime release ad-hoc early warnings and will set up this year a crisis dashboard to keep member states updated about the risks ahead and gather data to prepare.