The "restart" in civil protection has often been talked about since the flood killed more than 180 people a year ago and left hundreds injured and thousands of people in despair.

The federal, state, local authorities and aid organizations should work together better: the interior ministers decided that at the beginning of June.

Since then, there has been a joint competence center at the Federal Office for Civil Protection and Disaster Assistance (BBK), which brings all the players together to create a 360-degree picture.

Helen Bubrowski

Political correspondent in Berlin.

  • Follow I follow

On Wednesday, Federal Interior Minister Nancy Faeser (SPD) presented further plans for the restart.

"We always have to be prepared," says Faeser.

"And we have to warn of dangers earlier." A timely warning can save lives, that is the lesson from the past year.

Faeser wants to make progress with modern warning systems such as cell broadcast, which can send targeted warnings directly to cell phones.

There should be a warning day on December 8th.

In all of this, however, one thing is important, according to Faeser: one must not spread fear.

There is a fine line between warning and scaremongering, sometimes one is smarter afterwards.

In any case, one can certainly argue about whether the statements made by the new BBK President Ralph Tiesler in an interview are on this side or on the other side of the border.

Tiesler told the newspapers of the Funke media group that due to climate change and the acute threat of storms and floods, "some areas" should not be resettled.

Tiesler means the area on the Ahr, which burst its banks so dramatically last summer.

But he didn't leave it at that.

"This question" also arises on German coasts.

There is still time to develop protection concepts against the effects of the climate crisis and to take them into account in spatial planning, said Tiesler in the interview.

Tiesler was also present at the press conference on Wednesday, in which Faeser presented her ideas for civil protection, and the second question went directly to him: Which areas are meant?

What criteria can one use to judge whether one's own house is actually standing on an area that shouldn't actually be inhabited?

Tiesler answered evasively that he couldn't pull out a list of towns and wasn't even responsible for it, and these were questions about the future.

You can imagine the criteria yourself.

Actually, he wanted to send a completely different message: that there were "no certainties" in civil protection and disaster control.

You have to learn to ask questions "out of the box", questions that have not been thought of before.

"We have to talk openly to each other and allow thoughts

Faeser announced a whole cascade of measures, some of which were planned for a long time.

National resources for disasters are to be expanded.

There should be special protection for the critical infrastructure, such as energy and health care.

Before the end of this year, there should be cornerstones for a corresponding law in which measures to increase resilience are planned.

An annual civil protection day from 2023 onwards

In addition to the tent city in Berlin-Tegel, in which 5,000 people can already be accommodated, further emergency shelters should be set up "in record time" where people can sleep and receive medical care.

From 2023 onwards there will be a civil protection day in Germany, which will not only promote government measures, but also individual precautions.

Faeser announced that he would invite the federal states to a conference later this year in order to systematically work through the flood disaster a year ago and the reconstruction and to draw lessons from it.

"We felt safe for too long," said Faeser.

"We have to work through the major omissions of the last few years and decades."

The federal and state governments will also have to discuss another point: the financing of investments in civil protection.

In the federal budget, more than 300 million are now earmarked for civil protection, Faeser reported on Wednesday, 146 additional jobs for the BBK.

This is a success in times of tight budgets.

She added: "The actual responsibility lies with the countries," so she would like to ask about the investments.

The states do not want to hand over any powers to the federal government.

The federal states immediately rejected an idea from the FDP to set up a central office at the BBK, which would require an amendment to the Basic Law.

Instead they want money.

At the interior ministers' conference in Würzburg in early June, they asked the federal government to set up structures for ten billion euros over the next ten years.

At the meeting six weeks ago, Faeser pledged support for setting up the siren network, but otherwise kept a low profile, pointing out that Parliament would decide on the budget.

The interior ministers of the federal states were not present at the press conference on Wednesday and Faeser made it clear that she was not willing to bear the sum alone: ​​the money had to be invested together, said the interior minister.