Dear colleague,

I would like to invite you to take part in the Seminar on public awareness-raising in the event of major disasters which will be held from 18 until 20 February 2009 in the Hotel Continental in Brno, Czech Republic.

The aim of the seminar is to initiate discussion on the awareness-raising of the EU citizens in the field of civil protection and how to enhance their knowledge on prevention in the event of emergencies. Discussion will be held in three conceptual streams:

· Working Group 1 - Training of diplomatic personnel in the field of civil protection;

· Working Group 2 - Public information and education aimed at the EU population; and

· Working Group 3 - Awareness raising as regards prevention measures and security of rescue personnel.

The draft agenda of the seminar, discussion paper, practical information, registration form and instructions for on-line registration are enclosed. I would like to ask you to register no later than 26 January 2009.

All the information regarding the meeting is available also at the website: http//www.hzscr.cz/presidency.

Any requests for information or clarification concerning the seminar should be addressed to Lenka Uhlířová (telephone: +420 950 819 863 or e-mail: lenka.uhlirova@grh.izscr.cz) or to Daniel Dittrich (telephone: +420 950 819 876 or e-mail: daniel.dittrich@grh.izscr.cz).

I believe that the seminar give us the opportunity to encourage the future development in the European awareness-raising field and that the fruitful and inspiring discussion will lead to the valuable outcomes.

I am looking forward to seeing you in Brno.

Yours sincerely,

Miroslav Štěpán

Director-General

Practical information

This document provides general practical information for participants of the meeting.

Registration

To register your delegation, please follow the enclosed Instructions for on-line registration.

The deadline for the registration is 26 January 2009.

Badges

Security badges will be distributed when the delegations arrive in the hotel during the check–in process. We kindly ask you to wear the badges at all times during the entire meeting programme. Please report immediately any lost or missing security badges to the organizers.

Meals

Dinner on Wednesday, 18 February, lunch on Thursday, 19 February and on Friday, 20 February will be served in the restaurant in the Hotel Continental Brno and will be borne by the organizers. Dinner on 19 February is hosted by the Governor of the South Moravia Region in the Loucký Monastery in Znojmo.

Language

The working language of the seminar will be English.

Should you have any questions regarding the provided practical information, please do not hesitate to contact:

Mrs. Lenka Uhlířová tel. +420 950 819 863 mob. +420 724 193 402 lenka.uhlirova@grh.izscr.cz	Mr. Daniel Dittrich tel: +420 950 819 876 mob: +420 724 193 396 daniel.dittrich@grh.izscr.cz

Arrival/Departure/Transport

Arrival

We recommend you that you book your flight on Wednesday 18 February preferably directly to the Brno Airport or that arrives in the Prague-Ruzyně Airport around noon. Delegates will be met at the Brno Airport or at the Prague-Ruzyně Airport in arrival halls by conference organizers. Transport will be organised from both airports to the Hotel Continental Brno. From the Brno Airport the transport will be provided during whole day and the journey takes app. 30 minutes. From the Prague-Ruzyně Airport will leave two buses, first at 11:30 and the second one at 13:30, the journey takes app. 2 hours and 30 minutes.

Should the participants arrive directly in the Hotel Continental Brno, please follow the transportation instructions at the hotel’s web page: http://www.continentalbrno.cz/ENG/5.

Transport

Transportation for scheduled events away from the meeting venue will be provided by buses. We are unable to meet any requests for transport outside the timeframe of the meeting or beyond Brno.

Departure

We will arrange also the transport from the meeting venue to the Brno Airport (provided during whole day) and the Prague – Ruzyně Airport on 20 February after lunch. The first bus to the Prague-Ruzyně Airport will leave at 13:30 and the second one at 14:30. Please note that after transfer from the Hotel Continental to the Brno Airport or the Prague – Ruzyně Airport on 20 February, organizers will not provide any further transport.

Accommodation and meeting venue

Accommodation

Based on the information you will provide during the registration, the Czech Presidency will book rooms for your delegation at the Hotel Continental Brno.

Hotel Continental Brno http://www.continentalbrno.cz

Kounicova 6
602 00 Brno

Czech Republic

The accommodation will be covered only for the Heads of delegations. Room rate for delegates is 110 EUR for a room per night. Parking is provided in the hotel garage for app. 8 EUR per day.

Please note that participants have to bear the costs for any additional services when checking out of the hotel.

Free internet access is available in all rooms of the hotel.

The exchange office is located directly in the hotel.

Meeting venue

The Hotel Continental Brno also serves as the meeting venue.

Provisional Agenda

Wednesday, 18 February 2009
Early afternoon	Delegations arrival in the Hotel Continental Brno – check-in
16:00 – 16:30	Welcome drink in the hall of the Hotel Continental Brno
16:45	Departure to Slavkov u Brna
17:15 – 19:00	Excursion to the Slavkov u Brna Battle field memorial
19:30	Return to the Hotel Continental Brno
20:00 – 22:30	Dinner in the restaurant of the Hotel Continental Brno

Thursday, 19 February 2009
9:00 - 9:15	Welcome speeches
9:15 – 10:45	Presentation by the Czech Presidency Presentation by the European Commission
10:45 – 11:30	Coffee break + Family photo
11:30 – 13:00	Work in the groups – Session I Group 1: Training of diplomatic personnel in the field of civil protection Group 2: Public information and education aimed at the EU population Group 3: Awareness raising as regards prevention measures and security of rescue personnel
13:00 – 14:30	Lunch
14:30 – 16:00	Work in the groups – Session II Group 1: Training of diplomatic personnel in the field of civil protection Group 2: Public information and education aimed at the EU population Group 3: Awareness raising as regards prevention measures and security of rescue personnel
16:00 – 16:30	Coffee break
16:30 – 18:00	Work in the groups – Session III Group 1: Training of diplomatic personnel in the field of civil protection Group 2: Public information and education aimed at the EU population Group 3: Awareness raising as regards prevention measures and security of rescue personnel
18:30	Departure to Znojmo
19:30 – 20:00	Excursion to the Loucký monastery in Znojmo
20:00 – 22:00	Dinner hosted by the Governor of the South Moravia Region followed by wine degustation
23:00	Return to the Hotel Continental Brno

Friday, 20 February 2009
9:30 – 10:30	Work in the groups – Session IV Group 1: Training of diplomatic personnel in the field of civil protection Group 2: Public information and education aimed at the EU population Group 3: Awareness raising as regards prevention measures and security of rescue personnel
10:30 – 11:00	Coffee break
11:00 – 13:00	Plenary session
13:00 – 14:30	Lunch
followed by	Delegations departure to the Brno Airport and the Prague – Ruzyně Airport

Thematic document

Background

As Commission stated in its Annual Policy Strategy for 2009 the EU must continue to focus its attention on delivering policies of direct interest for citizens. Public security in case of an emergency definitely is such kind of topic. The EU should carry on its efforts to ensure the security of all EU citizens also through the provision of timely, targeted, relevant and reliable information.

In the daily life the EU citizens may face disasters or major emergencies which threaten people's health or their lives and which can cause extensive material damage or damage to the environment. To be able to deal with such situation and not to hamper the work of rescue services, it is necessary to increase and deepen the knowledge of citizens, not only about potential danger, measures taken by intervening rescue services, but also about right procedures and behaviour of the population during the emergencies. Such information should be communicated not only in their country of origin, but throughout Europe and other regions. Furthermore successful communication, i.e. communication that makes an impact, requires a competitive message and the right communication channels. Citizens, who are well informed and who behave correctly, form one of the preconditions for the successful intervention of rescue services, and a good level of awareness also contributes to understanding the necessity of the measures that have to be taken.

Initiatives will be focused also on securing the health and life of citizens when exercise their right of free movement within the EU or even when they travel abroad. In this case awareness raising on the Community Mechanism for Civil protection among diplomatic personnel is a crucial issue. It is equally important to adopt measures to improve a safety of Rescue personnel when saving lives and property.

Main objectives

The outcomes from the seminar will be used to help to adopt the Council conclusions on awareness raising measures in June 2009. These are the main objectives to be discussed:

· To initiate the process of education and training of diplomatic personnel in the European Civil Protection Mechanism issue;

· To give Europe’s citizens the timely, targeted, relevant and reliable information they need to make informed choices about their safety and security;

· To raise awareness on the civil protection by communicating our messages in a transparent, understandable way to as broad an audience as possible;

· To raise public awareness on civil protection issues and encourage the development through the MIC of a common European way of communicating reliable and relevant information to the citizens in an emergency situation;

· To enhance security of rescue personnel during interventions.

Working groups

Group 1: Training of diplomatic personnel in the field of civil protection

Awareness raising on the Community Mechanism for Civil Protection
Education in the field of humanitarian operations
Information sources – where to find up-to-date, relevant and reliable information

Group 2: Awareness-raising as regards prevention measures, public information and education aimed at the EU population

Types of communication depending on the phase of the emergency

Information dissemination before the emergency, i.e. prevention and education
Warning systems during the emergency
Communication during and after the emergency

Basic target groups for the communication:

Children and youth
Adults
Foreigners

Group 3: Awareness-raising as regards prevention measures and security of rescue personnel

Creating the conditions for the development of knowledge based disaster prevention policies

- creating an inventory of information on disasters

- spreading best practices

Improving the linking between actors throughout the disaster management cycle

- extending the lessons learnt to disaster prevention

- training in the area of disaster prevention

- reinforcing early warning tools

Legal measures to improve a safety and security of Rescue personnel
Measures aimed at employers to increase safety of personnel

City of Brno

Brno, as the metropolis of Moravia, is the second largest city in the Czech Republic. It has a population of nearly 370,000 people. Brno is a statutory city of the Southern Moravia Region and a seat of universities and important judiciary institutions.

City of Brno prides itself on many notable historic sites that show evidence of its rich cultural history. Once established as a settlement of merchants eight centuries ago on the junctions of the rivers Svratka and Svitava, it withstood the pressure of both the Hussite and Swedish besiegement, witnessed Napoleon‘s military expedition to Slavkov, bore the cruel consequences of the Austrian defeat at the Battle of the Three Emperors, became an industrial centre of the Habsburg monarchy called "the Austrian Manchester" and, in the twentieth century, gained a character of a modern city thanks to the construction of new buildings in the functionalist style.

For more information on Brno and the Southern Moravian Region please visit:

Brno in Wikipedia

Statutory City of Brno

Southern Moravia Region

Regional Government of the Southern Moravia Region

Instructions for on-line registration

The registration for this seminar is provided by means of the on-line system AKROS.

We recommend that registration applications for the whole delegation are filled in by one person – the contact person. It is up to you to decide who to entrust with this task. We would like to ask the contact person to enter the required data for all members of the delegation, and, if necessary, change the data that was not entered correctly, before the deadline26 January 2009.

Please note that after the deadline will no longer be possible on-line registration. In this case, please fill in and send us by fax (+420 950 819 962) the enclosed registration form as soon as possible but not later than 6 February 2009.

To register your delegation, please apply online at the following website address: https://events.eu2009.cz/delegation/eucitizens.

Your delegation’s login and password are: Login: Password:

Please note that any special needs regarding the type of accommodation (e.g. in case of disability) or food (e.g. vegetarian) must be indicated in the “notice for person” field in the registration form. In the same field please indicate also your preference for the working group by using codes WG1, WG2 or WG3.

Please note that recent colour photo is required when registering Head of delegation.

We believe that your registration via the website address mentioned above will be smooth and easy. The website also contains a guide to the registration process, as well as the Help Desk contact information. Nevertheless, if you have any difficulty applying for registration, please contact: Lenka Uhlířová (telephone: +420 950 819 863 or e-mail: lenka.uhlirova@grh.izscr.cz) or Barbora Němcová (telephone: +420 950 819 743 or e-mail: barbora.nemcova@grh.izscr.cz).

Accreditation badges will be issued on your arrival at the hotel.

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