On Thursday 06 June, the European Commission and the GCSP jointly organised a conference on crisis management which also introduced the new ISO 22361 standard. Four different panel discussions allowed for fruitful exchanges between distinguished experts from the private and public sector, as well as member states. Mr Janez Lenarčič, European Commissioner for Crisis Management, opened the conference.

The first panel discussion welcomed Ms Ann Mettler, Vice President at Breakthrough Energy, former Director-General of the European Political Strategy Center of the European Commission; Ms Salla Saastamoinen, Deputy Director-General, European Commission, Joint Research Centre (JRC); Mr Hans Das, Deputy Director-General, European Commission, DG for civil protection and humanitarian aid operations (ECHO) & Mr Andy Mends, Director of Operations, GAVI Alliance; to discuss themes such as foresight, anticipation and assessment to give an overview of what an anticipatory European Union looks like.

In the second panel Mr Petteri Korvala, Secretary-General, Secretariat of the Security Committee of Finland; Ms Sandra Gallina, Director-General, European Commission, DG for Health and Food Safety (SANTE); Ms Beate Gminder, acting Director-General, European Commission, DG for Migration and Home Affairs (HOME); and Ms Sarah Tarry, Director for Defence Policy and Capabilities, North-Atlantic Treaty Organisation (NATO) shared their insights and lessons learned on prevention, mitigation, preparedness and resilience with the aim to work towards a more prepared Union. Ms Hanna Jahns, Director, European Commission, DG for civil protection and humanitarian aid operations (ECHO) led the conversation.

The third panel concentrated on the themes of response, recovery and continual improvement and could count on Mr Michael Karnitschnig, Director for External Relations, European Commission, Secretariat-General (SG); Mr Francisco Fontan, Head of Cabinet of the High Representative and Vice‑President Josep Borrell Fontelles; and Ms Leen Depuydt, Director-General, National Crisis Centre of Belgium, EU Council Presidency; to transmit their insights.

The final panel's purpose was to bring awareness of the new ISO Standard ISO 22361, which defines crisis management and serves as a guiding tool to enhance crisis management capability for government entities, international organisations  and businesses. We had the honor to welcome the author of the standard Mr Kev Brear, Team Leader-TC292-ISO 22361, Director Archipelago Resilience Consulting, Chair TC 309-Governance of Organizations. He outlined the genesis and objectives of the standard and why it is so relevant for todays complex environment. He also shared the floor with Ms Agnieszka Kazmierczak, Director-General, European Commission, Internal Audit Service (IAS); Dr Hugo Marynissen, Chair of Crisis Governance, University of Antwerp; and Dr David Rubens, CEO, Institute of Strategic Risk Management (ISRM) who each gave a perspective on crisis management from their field (private – academic – government entity). Mr David Horobin, Head of Crisis Management, Geneva Centre for Security Policy (GCSP) led the discussions. One key conclusion was the need to enhance governance and ethics as well as highlighting the importance of organizational culture in enhancing crisis response capability.

The conference garnered a lot of interest from the different parties attending.