Würzburg (German news agency) – At the end of the three-day conference of interior ministers, the state ministers reiterated their call for a significant increase in federal funds for civil protection. “Corona crisis, Ukraine war, storm lows like Kyrill: The challenges of the past few years have also revealed that we urgently need to do better in civil protection,” said North Rhine-Westphalia’s Interior Minister Herbert Reul (CDU) of the “Rheinische Post” (Friday edition).
In order to strengthen it, you still need a targeted siren support program and significantly more money. “Therefore, the strengthening pact for disaster and civil protection in the amount of ten billion euros – analogous to the special fund for the Bundeswehr – is urgently needed,” said Reul. Lower Saxony’s Interior Minister Boris Pistorius (SPD) also confirmed the demand for this sum. “If one side of the coin is the strengthening of external defense with 100 billion euros, then the other side of this coin must be a corresponding strengthening of internal security, especially civil, disaster and civil protection.” That’s why it was important that a decision had been made on the 10 billion euro package for the targeted and permanent hardening of civil and civil protection capabilities, said Pistorius. According to a joint proposal for a resolution by the states led by the Union and the SPD, which the Rheinische Post reports on, it is necessary “that, in addition to the financial commitment of the states, the federal government should provide funds of around 10 billion euros to strengthen civil protection within the next 10 years for a “civil protection strengthening pact” so that the necessary structures can be created and rebuilt in order to be able to offer the population adequate protection in transnational situations”. The state interior ministers describe the further development of the existing siren warning networks as “suitable and indispensable”. The draft decision goes on to say: “You [die IMK] However, does not see the current federal funding program as a sufficient funding basis for an effective further development of the siren program and therefore calls on the federal government to consolidate the funding program and to provide further funding beyond the planned end of funding in 2022.”
The paper is to be decided at the end of the IMK on Friday. Hesse’s Interior Minister Peter Beuth (CDU) criticized the federal government for setting the wrong priorities. The traffic light government in Berlin presented “a budget with record debt”. “At the same time, the Federal Minister of the Interior does not want to spend too much tax money on civil protection.”
This focus is incomprehensible in view of the “urgent need for action and great concerns of the people in our country”, said Beuth of the “Rheinische Post”. The traffic light threatens to gamble away the population’s trust in the protection of their own country.
Photo: THW volunteers, via dts news agency
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