News item | 31-10-2025 | 16:21
This week, Minister Van Oosten of Justice and Security, Hein van der Loo, chairman of the Security Council, and Ton Heerts, chairman of the Governance and Security Committee and member of the board of the Association of Dutch Municipalities (VNG), made administrative agreements about the commitment and investment in local and regional resilience. The ministry makes resources available for this annually, amounting to a structural amount of €70 million from 2027. The money will be used for, among other things, emergency support points, strengthening safety regions and supporting and activating society and national partners and the public campaign.
Minister Van Oosten: “As a society, we must prepare for emergencies. That is why the ministry, the Security Council and the VNG, for example, are jointly committed to the step-by-step development of a national network of emergency support points. Municipalities and safety regions implement this regionally and locally.”
A rapidly changing world requires resilience
A resilient society contributes to the protection of safety, freedom, prosperity and values. The scenario that society is tested for its resilience is becoming more likely. This is due to changing geopolitical threats, climate change and recent disasters at home and abroad.
Resilience requires a local approach
To achieve this, the available money will be invested mainly at regional and local level in crisis management, the measures and facilities that the government takes for security in the Netherlands. Municipalities play a crucial role in strengthening social resilience and resilience. They are the first government to be close to residents and entrepreneurs, and they have a unique position. For example, safety regions and municipalities work closely together to explore pilots with emergency support points and to strengthen citizen assistance.
Emergency support points are physical locations that are designed to provide information and support to the population in the event of disasters and crises. This could include, for example, a long-term outage of electricity and telecommunications.
In the coming years, the pilots will be used to investigate how these emergency support points can best be set up and what is needed for a phased approach to a national network in all 342 municipalities. It is important that the emergency support points are also supported by society and that there is sufficient room for local customization.
Ton Heerts, chairman of the Governance and Safety Committee and member of the VNG board: “A special moment when the national government, municipalities and safety regions join forces. We are now going to work together with companies and residents and experience how we are doing. Using the advice from the VNG Resilience and Resilience Guide at local level, I think we are already quite resilient when it comes down to it. We think and act ahead!”
Hein van der Loo of the Safety Council: “With the pilot for emergency support points, we are taking an important next step. It means that we prepare together for what can happen and what the consequences are. What is the impact on our society if important facilities fail and how do we help each other? Residents also have an explicit role to play in this. These are emergency support points in and for their environment.”
Public campaign ‘Think ahead’
In an emergency, the government and emergency services are where they are needed most. They do this to quickly get the crisis under control and get people to safety. They can’t be everywhere at once. As a result, most people may have to rely on themselves for the first 72 hours. It is therefore important that you can take care of yourself and your household for the first 3 days.
That is why the government is launching a multi-year Think Ahead campaign on TV, radio and online on November 1. The campaign helps people prepare in 3 steps: make an emergency package, make an emergency plan, talk to each other and help each other. Regional and local governments, the business community and social partners support the campaign.