The European Defence Agency hosts an exercise on how to deal better with the effects of Chemical, Biological and Radiological or Nuclear (CBRN) agents, in Jambes, Namur, from 11 to 13 November, bringing together about 100 experts from its participating Member States.
Chemical or biological agents have been used in attacks against military personnel and civilians in recent years and the threat of these weapons is likely to increase in the future.
The European Defence Agency is meeting this challenge head on by running an exercise at the operational and tactical level to examine all of the issues involved with CBRN agents. Having worked for two years to develop procedures and practices, they are now being put into practice at a high level headquarters based exercise.
Military experts from across the European Union are gathered to refine these procedures and to exchange ideas on the best way to address an attack of this nature. Although primarily focused on deployed operations, the exercise takes the opportunity to share ideas on homeland defence from different European institutions and other agencies. Representatives from NATO are also sharing their experiences and ensuring that their work goes hand in hand with that the European Defence Agency.
The exercise runs from 11 to 13 November and three scenarios are examined in order to test simulating different combinations of chemical, biological and radiological substances to enhance agents’ capabilities. Each scenario runs through several mock headquarters set up to test reactions and procedure to incidents. The exercise has tactical level demonstrations of mock incidents dealt with by the Royal Belgian Army, who has significant experience in dealing with chemical weapons left over from World War 1.
This is a unique platform for experts from both the CBRN arena and the Explosives Ordnance Disposal (EOD) or bomb disposal communities to share their ideas and experiences. The result should produce a robust template for the management of incidents which will allow procedures to be developed for operational level headquarters for multi-national EU led operations.
Recent EDA work includes a concept for the EOD containing CBRN materials. A concept for the Detection Identification and Monitoring of Biological agents and work on a dual protection of Individual Protective Equipment (IPE) against both explosives and CBRN agents for bomb disposal operators. More recently work has started on a programme for the development of a biological agent detection equipment programme.