Finland to participate in NATO partnership for peace bioterrorism exercise

Press release 39/2006
16 February, 2006


Finland will participate in a civil emergency preparedness exercise, called the Green Cloud, to be organised within the auspices of NATO Partnership for Peace Programme (PfP) in Brussels on 20 – 21 February. The exercise is about management of the consequences of biological terrorism.

The scenario for the exercise is a situation in which a dangerous infectious disease has been deliberately spread onboard a cruise vessel visiting several harbours in North Sea and Baltic Sea countries. The exercise will be a simulated map exercise. No preparedness systems will be activated in the course of the exercise, and it will be carried out in the NATO headquarters by national experts within the field.

Earlier, the civil preparedness exercises organised within the auspices of the PfP Programme have been field exercises, and also Finland has participated in many of them. This year, however, the exercise will be, for the first time, held as a map exercise for financial reasons in accordance with the civil exercise programme approved in 2005. Other Partner countries to attend the exercise include Sweden, Austria and Switzerland, among others.

Additional information: Special Adviser Tiina Peltola-Lampi, Mission of Finland to NATO, tel. +322 706 2116, Director Rauli Parmes, Preparedness Unit, Ministry of Transport and Communications, tel. +358 40 506 5266, and, as concerns affairs related to Partnership for Peace, Counsellor Pirjo Tulokas, Unit for Security Policy, Ministry for Foreign Affairs, tel. +358 9 1605 5322