HNS BridGER

Overview

Description

With growing popularity and effectiveness of the Union Civil Protection Mechanism (UCPM), a continued increase of UCPM deployments to and through Germany can be expected. Therefore, Germany will have to fulfil two roles in the future: as a host nation as well as a transit nation. This being said, developing one nation-wide Host Nation Support (HNS) concept in Germany has proven difficult to achieve due to its strong federalism and subsequent constitutional division of responsibilities and tasks in the area of civil protection. As a consequence, there are currently no nation-wide standards, procedures and services when it comes to HNS.

Under management of the German Federal Office of Civil Protection and Disaster Assistance (BBK), the EU-funded project “HNS BridGER - Bridging Legal Frameworks and Practical Readiness in Host Nation Support” aims to fill this gap and also directly contributes to the European Union’s Disaster Resilience Goal No. 5 “Secure”. Under the umbrella of the EU-Competence Centre, a Working Group for matters of Host Nation Support (HNS) was mandated by the Committee on Fire Service Matters, Disaster Control, and Civil Defense (AfKzV) on March 2024. The BridGER project enables the implementation of the mandate for the development of German HNS guidelines within a reasonable time frame and scope.

The main objective of the project is the national implementation of the EU HNS Guidelines and, consequently, the development of a robust German HNS system. Three main project outputs have been determined: An HNS toolbox, a training concept for HNS staff and a blueprint for an HNS tabletop exercise. The toolbox includes developing a nation-wide HNS plan that enables German HNS providers to efficiently integrate international assistance into the German civil protection system. The training concept aims to equip prospective HNS staff with the skill set needed to efficiently fulfil their role and the HNS table-top exercise blueprint provides HNS toolbox users with a cost-effective training opportunity.