Part 2
Norwegian civil society equipped to deal with crisis and war

3 More coordinated prevention and preparedness efforts

All civil sectors must be prepared for serious crises and war. Coordination is necessary to ensure that challenges and considerations in different sectors are seen in context, and for the necessary sharing of information about threats, risks and undesirable incidents. Sectors affected by a threat or incident must have knowledge about how the incident could affect them, what measures could be relevant, and how initiating measures in one sector could have knock-on effects in another. A key objective is to gain a better understanding of interdependencies, such as how the implementation of an initiative in one sector will depend on assistance from actors in another. The breadth of civil preparedness work makes it necessary to employ a comprehensive planning approach. The Government will improve our preparedness by ensuring that planning and strengthening of civil preparedness can take place in a more cross-sectoral and long-term manner.

The Government will:

• establish a common council structure for preparedness planning and status assessments at national level to ensure continuity and systematic preparedness work in civil sectors. The business sector and voluntary organisations will be integrated into the new structure.

• draw up a long-term plan for public security and resilience, which includes the police.

• propose a new act that sets fundamental security requirements for undertakings and review associated regulations such as the Instructions for the Ministries’ work with civil protection and emergency preparedness, sector-specific legislation and the Security Act.

• develop a national security strategy

• set clear requirements for cross-sectoral preparedness cooperation.

• propose that emphasis is placed on providing guidelines for security and preparedness work in agency management.

• regularly appoint a total preparedness commission.

• strengthen the involvement of and cooperation with the private sector on security and preparedness.

• clarify the role of industrial safety systems and major accident enterprises in the total defence.

• contribute to further developing NATO’s work on civil resilience.

• strengthen civil preparedness cooperation between the Nordic countries within the framework of NATO.

• work to prevent regulations from posing an obstacle to joint Nordic cooperation that can increase our resilience.

• follow up NATO’s new host nation support concept at the national level.

3.1 Common council structure at ministry level for preparedness planning and status assessments in civil sectors

To strengthen the total defence capability and resilience of civil society, the Government must be able to make decisions based on cross-sectoral assessments and prioritisation of measures in critical areas of society (such as health, transport and power). These must be based on structured and systematic collection of information from relevant actors (see Box 3.1 for key requirements and expectations for continuity of critical societal functions).

The Government is establishing a new council structure for the ministries’ work on preparedness planning and status assessments in civil sectors. The purpose is to ensure the systematic collection and processing of information from all actors, at all administrative levels, which is important for maintaining continuity of functions in critical areas of society. The Government will also ensure that businesses and voluntary organisations are included in the structure, as they possess important information about the state of critical areas of society. The structure is established on the basis of the societal areas identified through the common requirements for fundamental security referred to in Section 3.3. The aim of the structure is to improve our ability to

• maintain continuity of critical functions within important civil societal functions (assessment of status).

• identify cross-sectoral dependencies and vulnerabilities in an ever-changing threat and risk landscape.

• assess relevant measures to ensure necessary preparedness, and prevent and manage incidents. Prevention should be emphasised.

• ensure more systematic and binding involvement of relevant private and voluntary organisations in preparedness planning and status assessments.

• provide a better understanding of the situation and decision-making basis for strategic, cross-sectoral and long-term prioritisation and management of resilience and preparedness efforts in the civil sectors.

A responsible ministry will be appointed for each area of society.1 Each responsible ministry will ensure

• dialogue with other ministries with co-responsibility for the area of society, including the involvement of relevant public, private and voluntary sector organisations.

• that there is a suitable council in which relevant public agencies, private businesses and voluntary organisations participate (emergency preparedness council). Various councils have already been established in several areas of society, such as the Ministry of Trade, Industry and Fisheries’ business and industry preparedness council, the newly established Health Emergency Preparedness Council, the Power Supply Preparedness Organisation and the Ministry of Transport and Communications’ Civil Transport Readiness Advisory Forum.

• that the situation in the area of society is assessed annually to shed light on assets and vulnerabilities with respect to the threat and challenge landscape. The ability to support military efforts must be included in the assessment.

• that proposals are made for relevant measures as necessary.

• that the assessments are forwarded to the Ministry of Justice and Public Security as the coordinating ministry for civil society.

The Ministry of Justice and Public Security will, by virtue of its coordinating role in public security and emergency preparedness, prepare an overall assessment for the Government across the critical areas of civil society. The assessment will be presented to the Crisis Council. When discussing the overall assessment, the Crisis Council should include appropriate participation from the private and voluntary sectors. The overall assessment will provide the Government with a better decision-making basis for prioritising measures to safeguard assets and reduce vulnerabilities across all areas of society. The work is carried out in collaboration with the Ministry of Trade, Industry and Fisheries, which has the coordinating responsibility for security of supply within the scope of the Act on Business and Industry Preparedness, see Section 11.1. The new council structure does not change the division of responsibilities in the public administration.

The circles illustrate arenas for cooperation at different levels.

3.2 Long-term plan for civil preparedness

The Government will establish a long-term plan for civil preparedness, and work on the plan is scheduled to start in 2025.

The Total Preparedness Commission recommends the establishment of a long-term plan for civil preparedness. The Commission stresses that our current challenges imply a greater need to strengthen preparedness across sectors, and the importance of having mechanisms in place that support comprehensive assessments. The Commission also emphasises that the work on a long-term plan for civil preparedness must be seen in the context of preparation of a new long-term plan for the defence sector.

The Government has implemented a number of vigorous measures to strengthen emergency preparedness. With the new long-term plan for the defence sector, the Government has laid the foundation for a substantial and long-term strengthening of Norway’s defence capabilities. In this white paper, the Government lays the foundation for a significant strengthening of civil preparedness in the short and long term. In the spring of 2025, the Government will present a national security strategy to underpin efforts to safeguard national security interests.

The Government nonetheless agrees with the Total Preparedness Commission on the need for more long-term planning in the civil sectors, and will therefore draw up a long-term plan for civil preparedness. The plan will facilitate more long-term and comprehensive management, prioritisation, planning and development of key emergency response resources in civil society. The plan must take the differences between long-term planning in the defence sector and the civilian sector into account. While the long-term plan for the defence sector deals with one sector and one level of administration, civil preparedness is cross-sectoral, encompassing all administrative levels of business and industry and the voluntary sector. The business sector owns and operates critical infrastructure in areas such as electronic communications, energy and financial services. The voluntary sector plays a key role in emergency preparedness across the country.

The sectors involved in civil preparedness differ in terms of their areas of responsibility and organisation, ranging from healthcare and space technology to the grocery trade. Very few organisations have preparedness as their main concern as they are primarily involved in the production of goods and services. This must be taken into account when planning emergency preparedness. In many sectors, efforts to understand threats, assess preventive measures, practise incident management and establish new knowledge are just as important as considering major long-term investments. The long-term plan for civil preparedness must therefore adopt a different approach than the long-term plan for the defence sector.

The Government’s long-term plan

Work on the long-term plan for civil preparedness will begin in 2025 with the establishment of the new council structure for preparedness planning and status assessments in civil sectors, see Section 3.1. The Government aims to have emergency preparedness councils in all critical areas of society by 2026. Among other things, the councils will contribute to the annual preparation of vulnerability and status assessments within critical areas of society.

The knowledge obtained through the status and vulnerability assessments will provide a good basis for the Government to draw up a long-term plan for civil preparedness, which is regularly revised. The plan must address the need for long-term, cross-sectoral planning, while taking into account the special features of the civil preparedness field, and be flexible enough to meet a constantly changing threat and challenge landscape.

The purpose of the long-term plan is to strengthen civil preparedness, ensure continuity, coordination and a long-term approach. The long-term plan will enhance the link between risk assessments and political measures. It will also be a tool for assessing future workforce needs in relation to workforce needs in society in general.

Work on the long-term plan will be based on documents describing challenges, threats and risks, such as the national security strategy (see Section 3.4), worst-case scenarios from the Directorate for Civil Protection, risk assessments from the Norwegian National Security Authority and policing guidance from the National Police Directorate.

To ensure that the plan adapts to changes in the preparedness status and the changing threat and risk situation, the plan must be updated annually with measures. Such measures may be related to structures, expertise, coordination and investments, and could apply to individual sectors or be cross-sectoral. Examples are establishing emergency shelters, see Section 6.1.2, establishing a cyber security reserve, see Section 9.1, build-up of forces in the Norwegian Civil Defence, see Section 5.4.6, and facilitating civil workforce preparedness in crisis and war, see Section 10.5.2. The responsibility for assessing and proposing measures lies with the individual ministry, and will be based in part on the annual status updates and recommendations from the emergency preparedness councils.

The different sectors must be seen in context to ensure that the most important measures are prioritised and that interdependencies are taken into account. By virtue of its coordinating role in the civil sector, the Ministry of Justice and Public Security will annually compile the various status updates from the responsible ministries and, on that basis, recommend prioritised measures. This work is carried out in collaboration with the Ministry of Trade, Industry and Fisheries, which has the coordinating responsibility for security of supply. It is natural that the recommendations are considered as part of the Government’s budget work. The new structure does not change the division of responsibilities in the public administration.

The Ministry of Justice and Public Security is stepping up the long-term and comprehensive development of both the police and the Norwegian Police Security Service. This requires knowledge of future trends, challenges and opportunities, as well as knowledge of how various measures and allocations affect the organisations’ goal attainment. At the same time, the plans must be designed in a way that ensures flexibility to meet the future and a constantly changing threat and challenge landscape. They must, for example, be able to adapt to changes in the crime situation and other trends in society, such as technological developments.

Multi-year plans will address development needs and ambitions related to police capabilities and capacities. Developments in crime must also be taken into account in this respect. The plans must also give the police and the Norwegian Police Security Service room for manoeuvre to develop capabilities and capacities in prioritised areas, and in line with a policy-based level of ambition. This could also apply to the preparedness planning of important collaborating actors, thus facilitating more comprehensive management and development of emergency preparedness in a cross-sectoral perspective. This approach will pave the way for more long-term and comprehensive preparedness planning in the civilian sector.

In its budget proposal for 2026, the Government will provide a status of its work on the long-term plan.

3.3 Common requirements for fundamental security of critical undertakings

The ability to maintain continuity in critical societal functions, such as power, health, electronic communications and digital services, is important for resilience. The Government will propose a cross-sectoral act setting common requirements for fundamental security for undertakings that are important to the functioning of society, in peace, crisis and war. This security is in part intended to help undertakings maintain their activities even if serious undesirable incidents and crises occur.

The Government wishes to set common requirements for fundamental security in undertakings covered by the new act. One of the purposes of the act is to strengthen undertakings’ own preparedness and resilience, and thereby their contribution to society’s overall resilience. In the Government’s view, the act should require undertakings to carry out risk assessments and implement the necessary security measures, as well as requirements for emergency preparedness, incident management and notification of serious incidents and crises.

A cross-sectoral act will be seen in the context of efforts to prepare for the implementation of the NIS2 Directive and the CER Directive. The directives divide society into different areas. These areas largely overlap with similar divisions in the framework for critical societal functions, fundamental national functions under the Security Act and NATO’s baseline requirements (see Box 3.1). The directives have not yet been incorporated into the EEA Agreement.

The Government will use the NIS2 and CER directives as a basis for its further work on national regulation of fundamental security requirements for undertakings. The Government will consider whether the scope of the new act should be expanded compared to the scope of the directives, including whether it should cover the public sector, including municipalities. The scope of a new act and the requirements to be imposed on undertakings must be further assessed.

As part of the implementation of the directives, the Government will also review the Instructions for the Ministries’ work with civil protection and emergency preparedness. An assessment will be made of the interface between the new act and the Security Act, as well as the relationship to relevant sector-specific regulations. Such assessment is important to avoid inexpedient double regulation, and any other ambiguities, between the new cross-sectoral act and the applicable security and emergency preparedness legislation in the various sectors. Ambiguities of this kind can make it difficult to ensure good and uniform implementation and follow-up of requirements for undertakings whose functioning is critical to society. They can also challenge effective supervision and accessible guidance. A comprehensive approach to security and emergency preparedness legislation will help to simplify preparedness work in the various sectors. It will also contribute to a more unified approach at a strategic level.

3.4 National security strategy

The Government has initiated work on a national security strategy.

A national security strategy is a cross-sectoral document that provides a comprehensive framework for how a state should promote its own security interests in relation to its surroundings and threats. Key allies such as the US and the UK have had their own variants of such strategies for some time. Germany presented its first national security strategy in 2023, as part of its response to Russia’s war of aggression in Ukraine. Sweden presented the second version of its security strategy in summer 2024.

Norway has not previously had a national security strategy. In 2023, the Government received input from the Norwegian Defence Commission, the Total Preparedness Commission and the Norwegian National Security Authority’s Security Advice, all of which stress the need for such a strategy. Common to all the input is that the gravity of the times we live in, the breadth of security challenges and changes in the framework conditions for Norwegian security reinforce the need for a more coordinated, comprehensive and long-term approach to Norway’s security, defence and emergency preparedness. The input has been assessed in the usual way by relevant ministries and the Office of the Prime Minister. In June 2024, the Storting unanimously decided that the Government should prepare a national security strategy.

The Government takes this mission seriously. There are various documents that present important considerations, goals and priorities of significance to security work, such as white papers on public security, long-term plans for the defence sector, and strategies for cyber security, artificial intelligence and counter-terrorism.

The Government will prepare a national security strategy that provides a comprehensive overview of foreign, security, defence and preparedness policy, based on our national security.

The strategy will be based on fundamental national assets and interests, and how these will be advanced and defended over time. To ensure that the policy areas concerned are seen as a whole, and to emphasise the central position of the strategy, the Office of the Prime Minister will be the issuer. The document will be the Government’s security strategy for Norway. It will be an unclassified product, with an accessible form in clear and understandable language. It will not be presented to the Storting, but will form a natural and authoritative basis for subsequent work in the Government and the ministries.

The Government suggests that a natural frequency for revising a national security strategy is once every parliamentary term.

The Government will present the security strategy by summer 2025.

3.5 Strengthen cross-sectoral collaboration

The Total Preparedness Commission stresses the importance of cross-sectoral cooperation on several points, including crisis management, establishing a picture of the situation, in connection with civil-military cooperation and in the face of hybrid threats. The Government shares the Commission’s assessment of the importance of cross-sectoral collaboration. Such collaboration will also be important in dealing with prioritisation challenges, for example in situations where the ability to maintain continuity in critical societal functions such as power, healthcare, electronic communication or transport comes under pressure.

The Government will therefore consider additional requirements for cross-sectoral cooperation through a revision of the Instructions for the Ministries’ work with civil protection and emergency preparedness. Common requirements for the fundamental security of critical undertakings (see Section 3.3) and the establishment of a common structure at ministry level for preparedness planning and status assessments in civil sectors (see Section 3.1) will also help to strengthen cross-sectoral preparedness efforts.

3.6 Prioritisation of security and emergency preparedness in agency management

The Total Preparedness Commission believes there is a need for increased emphasis on preparedness in the day-to-day work of all sectors. To ensure a common direction for cross-sectoral public security and emergency preparedness efforts, the Commission recommends including preparedness work in common guidelines issued by the Government to all ministries. The Government shares the Commission’s assessment of the importance of prioritising preparedness work in day-to-day activities. The Government wants the ministries to provide guidelines for the work on security and emergency preparedness in their agency management. The nature of such guidelines may vary depending on the challenges.

3.7 Regularly appoint a total preparedness commission

When the Total Preparedness Commission presented its Norwegian Official Report in June 2023, it was the first comprehensive review of emergency preparedness in Norway since the Willoch Committee presented its report NOU 2000: 24 Et sårbart samfunn (A Vulnerable Society – in Norwegian only). The threat and challenge landscape has changed significantly since then, and we must expect it to continue to change going forward. The organisation of society is also changing. Regular cross-sectoral and comprehensive assessments of emergency preparedness, as performed by the Total Preparedness Commission, are therefore necessary. The Government proposes as such that a total preparedness commission be appointed at regular intervals. This will contribute to continuity in emergency preparedness work, ensure an updated picture of the situation and lay the foundation for long-term political prioritisation.

3.8 Coordination arenas at various administrative levels

Society’s resilience depends on coordination at local, regional and central level, and the necessary cooperation and coordination between public, private and voluntary actors. See Figure 3.1 showing coordination arenas.

In the public sector, arenas for coordination have been established at local, regional and central level. At the ministry level, the Crisis Council is the central coordination arena. The Council is chaired by the secretary general of the Ministry of Justice and Public Security, and all ministers attend regularly. Subordinate agencies and expert environments participate as needed. Through a common structure at ministry level for emergency planning and status assessments, separate councils will be established in critical areas of society in which relevant public enterprises, business and industry and voluntary organisations participate (emergency preparedness councils) (see Section 3.1 and Figure 3.1). The Ministry of Justice and Public Security also organises inter-ministerial collaboration meetings when coordination and a common understanding of the situation is needed, such as in the aftermath of the Nord Stream sabotage in 2022 and when the terror threat level was raised in 2024.

The Directorate for Civil Protection’s coordination conferences at agency level are used to share information about the situation with relevant actors and identify issues across public authorities and administrative levels to achieve a common understanding of the situation. At agency level, there are also a number of other arenas where different agencies coordinate their activities within their respective sectors. The National Total Defence Forum is an important arena, where representatives of the Norwegian Armed Forces and the heads of approximately 30 central government agencies and directorates in the total defence field meet. The business and voluntary sectors are not permanently represented, but are invited to attend as needed. In many cases, the participation of business and industry will help to highlight new topics and strengthen the exchange of information.

The county preparedness councils are the established coordination arenas at regional level. The councils are chaired and appointed by the county governor. Participants include representatives of regional organisations responsible for critical infrastructure and critical societal functions, heads of emergency services, the Norwegian Armed Forces, police, the Norwegian Civil Defence, voluntary organisations, county authorities and other government agencies. Other actors can be invited as needed. Such participation should cover particularly important sectors and be tailored to any specific challenges within each region, ensuring the necessary involvement of business and industry.

Many municipalities have established a municipal preparedness council as a local coordination arena. Approximately 75% of all municipalities have established a municipal preparedness council. The councils consist of the mayor (often the chair), the municipal director and the emergency response coordinator, as well as representatives from the municipal and inter-municipal fire and rescue services, police, healthcare, Norwegian Civil Defence, voluntary organisations and owners of local critical infrastructure. Other actors are also invited to participate. There is currently no requirement for municipalities to have an emergency preparedness council. The Government will establish requirements for municipal preparedness councils, see Section 5.1.1.

Through a consistent council structure at central, regional and local level, the Government will ensure the participation of the private sector, voluntary organisations and relevant public actors. Together with the common structure for the ministries’ preparedness planning and status assessments in civil sectors (see Section 3.1), this consistent council structure will contribute to greater exchange of information, better interaction and utilisation of society’s collective resources, and increased common situational awareness.

3.9 Involvement of the private sector

Diverse business and industry throughout the country is important. The private sector owns, operates and develops critical infrastructure, and plays a crucial role in both our capability to ensure the continuity of critical societal functions and for civil support to military operations. Among other things, business and industry possess important knowledge of how technical systems are structured and potential vulnerabilities, and how any damage and loss can be handled. There are also a number of tangible resources in business and industry, including industrial safety systems such as personnel and mechanical equipment, which can be of great use when handling incidents.

Businesses also have a vested interest in being able to prevent and deal with demanding incidents that affect them, since disruptions in the production of goods and services can be costly and ultimately lead to bankruptcy. Many risk-reducing measures are therefore both commercially and socio-economically profitable. The private sector therefore has an important role to play across the crisis spectrum, both in relation to the civilian population and in supporting defence efforts.

Textbox 3.4 Coastal fleet

Coastal shipping companies and their vessels and crews are a major emergency preparedness resource. It is important for Norway that national and coastal transport needs can be met in times of both peace and crisis. A robust and functioning coastal fleet is also particularly important in view of Norway’s role as a receiving and transit country in a NATO context. Based on the changed security policy situation with war in Europe, the Ministry of Trade, Industry and Fisheries has included the coastal shipping companies as a permanent member of the NORTRASHIP management (Norwegian Shipping and Trade Mission).

In 2023, the Norwegian-owned, NOR-registered merchant fleet comprised approximately 850 ships (encompassing ships of 100 gross tonnes and more, and intended for the transport of goods or passengers). NOR-registered ships mainly operate in Norwegian waters, and to some extent in regional traffic between Norway and the Nordic countries/EU. The fleet is distributed along virtually the entire Norwegian coast.

Photo: Visit Norway.

3.9.1 Increased involvement and collaboration with the private sector

With this white paper, the Government is strengthening and formalising the involvement of and cooperation with the private sector on security and emergency preparedness. This is done through two main tracks. Firstly, by formalising the participation of the private and voluntary sectors in the new structure for status assessments and preparedness planning in civil sectors, see Section 3.1. In the new structure, the private sector and voluntary sectors will be represented in the councils within each of the designated areas of society. This will contribute to more frequent and direct dialogue between public and private actors. Regular contact between actors increases knowledge of each other’s roles, responsibilities, resources and interdependencies. This lays the foundation for better collaboration, both in emergency preparedness and in the handling of crises.

It is also important that business and industry is more closely involved in the work on cyber security. The assessment of a national cyber security reserve (see Section 9.1) will take a closer look at what role the business community could play in such a scheme. The cyber security reserve is intended to consist of relevant authorities and actors in the business sector and will primarily be used in the event of serious incidents that require extra capacity and expertise.

The second main track is setting clearer requirements for security efforts in undertakings, for example through efforts to prepare for the implementation of the CER Directive and the NIS2 Directive, see Section 3.3. The directives cover both broad fundamental security of undertakings that are important for society and requirements for resilience, and encompass more undertakings than those designated under the Security Act. When drafting national legislation, dialogue with the business community is encouraged.

The defence market is a unique market. In order for actors to be available to the defence sector during times of crisis, conflict and war, many of them must also be used in peacetime. The Government will therefore enter into strategic agreements with businesses to ensure the availability of resources both in peacetime and throughout the crisis spectrum leading up to war. Strategic agreements are long-term agreements that entail mutually binding cooperation between the defence sector and businesses. Such agreements contribute to security of supply and strengthened preparedness through long-term access to necessary goods and services. The strategic agreements are intended to supplement the Norwegian Armed Force’s own capacity rather than to replace it.

The civil sector must also enter into strategic agreements and partnerships in peacetime to meet civilian needs in crisis, conflict and war. An example is the Government’s agreement with four businesses in the grain industry, established in summer 2024, which will help to build up a national emergency stockpile of grain.

3.9.2 A business sector equipped to deal with crisis and war

Private actors may be exposed to undesirable actions in a conflict situation. A malicious actor does not take account of the ownership of designated targets, for example, whether critical infrastructure is owned by the public sector or by private actors. It is therefore important that private undertakings are aware of the threat situation and how it may impact them, and of potential consequences if their assets are affected.

The private sector must be prepared for undesirable incidents. In the same way as public sector organisations and individual households, business and industry should be prepared for the loss of critical inputs such as electricity, electronic communications and water, as well as the failure or reduced capacity of certain supply lines. The Government will also ask the Directorate for Civil Protection to clarify the role of the industrial safety system and major accident enterprises in the total defence work, and in a comprehensive concept for the protection of the civilian population. Reference is also made to Section 6.1.2 where the Government proposes reintroducing a requirement to establish emergency shelters, and to introduce a new requirement to build shelters in certain categories of buildings in specific areas. In the long term, this will mean that more private actors will have to establish such protective measures to safeguard their employees and other personnel using the buildings in question. A description of the Directorate for Civil Protection’s advice on self-preparedness is provided in Section 6.1.3.

In high-level situations on the crisis spectrum, the business community can play an important role in the production of important inputs. This can include weapons and ammunition, but also medical equipment, pharmaceuticals, fuel, food and spare parts.

It will be relevant in such situations to redirect production from what is profitable and appropriate in peacetime towards the goods/products that are deemed necessary to support military efforts and ensure necessary services for the population. The changed security situation in Europe as a result of Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine has put the need for increased production capacity in the defence industry high on the agenda. In response to this challenge, the Government has drawn up a roadmap defining priority products supplied by the Norwegian defence industry and associated measures to increase production capacity for these products (see Box 3.6).

Robust total defence requires a resilient business sector with a capacity and preparedness level that meets the authorities’ expectations and requirements. The Government will ensure that business and industry is involved at all levels, including at the national level, in efforts to prevent and manage crises.

Photo: Eythor Arnason.

3.10 International cooperation

The international community is crucial to Norway’s security. NATO is the cornerstone of Norwegian security policy. Finnish and Swedish NATO membership provides new opportunities for military mobility and closer Nordic cooperation on civil preparedness. Norway’s most important trading partners are in Europe, and new partnerships are increasingly being established in the field of civil preparedness.

3.10.1 NATO – the cornerstone of Norwegian security policy

NATO’s security guarantee and collective defence are crucial to our defence capability. Civil resilience and preparedness is important for the alliance’s collective defence and for credible deterrence. The alliance’s work on both civil resilience and military capability at national and allied level is enshrined in Article 3 of the North Atlantic Treaty: ‘In order more effectively to achieve the objectives of this Treaty, the Parties, separately and jointly, by means of continuous and effective self-help and mutual aid, will maintain and develop their individual and collective capacity to resist armed attack.’

NATO has three core functions for civil preparedness: i) continuity of government, (ii) continuity of essential services to the population and (iii) civil support to military operations. Based on these three core functions, NATO’s Member States have adopted seven baseline requirements for the resilience of critical civil society functions and formulated additional criteria for these in the form of resilience objectives, see also Box 3.1.

It is up to each ally to operationalise the common objectives for the civil sectors and prepare national implementation plans. All Member States must report on implementation to NATO. The objectives point to several relevant areas of civil preparedness (public and private) that are important to include in the allied countries’ national efforts. Examples are the importance of bolstering public resilience, and the importance of robust critical infrastructure and supply chains to support national and allied military forces.

Photo: Stian Olberg/DSB.

The work on allied resilience objectives provides an integrated and more coordinated approach to reducing vulnerabilities across allied countries, helping military forces to operate effectively in crisis and conflict. An essential element of supporting military efforts is to improve the ability to provide host nation support through allied reception. NATO’s new Host Nation Support concept is wide-ranging and assumes that the countries providing such support have the necessary and well-functioning infrastructure such as roads, railways, airports, seaports, hospitals, power supply, telecommunications networks and services such as board and lodging, laundry, road clearing, construction and transport services. New requirements for Member States are currently under development (MOR: Minimum Operational Requirements) based on the new plan.

The Government will follow up NATO’s new concept for Host Nation Support nationally to improve Norway’s ability to receive and host allied forces. As part of this work, the Government will ensure that the national concept for host country support is updated in light of new NATO requirements and expectations, including Finnish and Swedish NATO membership.

Parts of the existing concept were tested during the Nordic Response 2024 military exercise. It is an objective that the sectors work to rectify any shortcomings in 2025, and for exercises and tests to be carried out in connection with the Total Defence Year 2026, see Section 4.3.2, and planned military exercises in the Cold/Nordic Response series.

The ability to handle incidents at a high level on the crisis spectrum is dependent on efficient deployment of military forces. Military mobility is a core aspect of NATO and involves the reception, transshipment, storage and onward transport of personnel and materiel across borders, as well as the regulations and procedures needed to achieve this. Military mobility capability therefore requires the involvement of and work in a number of civil sectors, including the necessary regulatory clarifications in peacetime, and that the development of countries’ infrastructure is seen in light of NATO’s needs.

Finland’s and Sweden’s membership of NATO entail new requirements for military mobility in the Nordic region, including the reception and onward transport of allied forces. Norwegian ports will serve as a gateway for allied reinforcements and supplies to Finland, Sweden, operations in the Baltic Sea and, ultimately, also for resupplying the Baltics. As a consequence, certain west-east axes, particularly roads and transport infrastructure, will become more important. At the same time, the Finnish and Swedish membership brings with it new requirements for further developing cooperation related to total defence and civil resilience in a Nordic context, within the framework of NATO. This entails increased activity for total defence actors, for example in relation to host nation support. See also Section 10.2 on military mobility.

3.10.2 Nordic cooperation

The Government sees a need to further strengthen Norway’s civil preparedness cooperation with Finland and Sweden to support our collective ability to provide effective civilian support to military forces in times of war. Norway cooperates closely with the Nordic countries in the field of public security and civil preparedness, for example through the Haga Process, the Barents Rescue exercises and the Nordic Council of Ministers (see Box 3.8). The Government will strengthen Nordic cooperation on civil-military preparedness, with particular emphasis on NATO’s work on civil resilience and host nation support. The Government will consider how existing structures can be further developed, such as the Barents Euro-Arctic Council, with health preparedness given the highest priority. Furthermore, the Government will assess how cooperation on health emergency preparedness and other preparedness cooperation in the Northern Nordic region can be strengthened.

On 30 April 2024, the Nordic defence ministers signed NORDEFCO’s Vision for Nordic Defence Cooperation 2030. The vision reflects the new strategic reality of war in Europe and the accession of Finland and Sweden to NATO. The vision will contribute to allied security in the Nordic region and the Euro-Atlantic area.

3.10.3 European preparedness collaboration

Norway has established good cooperation arenas with allied countries in Europe and with the EU. In addition to Nordic cooperation, Nordic-Baltic cooperation is also important. Close cooperation with the UK on security and emergency preparedness has also been built up over a long period of time. Norway will continue to be an active contributor to closer cooperation with a view to enhancing public security in the Nordic region, NATO and Europe.

Norway is a participant in the EU’s Union Civil Protection Mechanism (UCPM), which is our most important arena for cooperation with the EU when it comes to public security, emergency preparedness and crisis management. Norway participates in the scheme on an equal footing with EU member states. The Directorate for Civil Protection has general management responsibility for the UCPM. The mechanism is also relevant to other civil sectors such as health, transport, the environment and research and education, including through knowledge and capacity building. In a crisis situation, Norway, in the same way as other participating countries, may request joint European, as well as the member states’ own, capacities to support national management (see Box 3.10 on Norwegian civilian support to Ukraine). The UCPM is also important for coordinating pan-European civil assistance to third countries. Through these mechanisms, we ensure that we can request assistance when needed, while also making resources and capacities available to help others. The Government will continue to be a predictable and reliable contributor to emergency preparedness and crisis management through the UCPM.

Norwegian governments recently led society through the COVID-19 pandemic. In Report No 5 to the Storting (2023–2024) A Resilient Health Emergency Preparedness – From Pandemic to War in Europe, the Government clearly states that binding cooperation with the EU is key to national health preparedness. For Norway, the pandemic revealed vulnerabilities in national preparedness that could not be solved by Norway alone, and cooperation with the EU was crucial to ensuring early access to vaccines for the Norwegian population. As presented in the white paper on health preparedness, the Government will work to promote Norway’s association with the EU’s enhanced cooperation on health preparedness on as equal terms as possible with EU member states.

In May this year, the Government signed a strategic partnership agreement on security and defence cooperation with the EU. The agreement provides a framework for stronger cooperation in areas where we can benefit from close collaboration, such as crisis management, defence industry, space cooperation, critical infrastructure and hybrid threats.

The Government will also closely monitor developments in the EU regarding cooperation on cyber, emergency preparedness and crisis management, and assess whether there are initiatives of importance to civil preparedness that Norwegian authorities should be involved in. The CER Directive and the NIS2 Directive are examples of such initiatives. As mentioned in Section 3.3, the Government will draw up a new act on the security of undertakings that are important for society, based on the NIS2 and CER directives.

Norway will be an active contributor to closer cooperation with a view to enhancing public security in the Nordic region, NATO and Europe. In areas where greater international cooperation is being considered, we must also assess what must be built up in terms of our own capacities and what it would be expedient to cooperate on. This assessment must consider Norwegian interests in a broad sense, including the relationship between public security and economic security, and employ a long-term perspective. It is also important to facilitate increased cooperation with the UK, in addition to other EEA countries, in the area of public security and emergency preparedness. Norway will closely monitor developments in the EU regarding emergency preparedness and crisis management, and any new initiatives.

The Government will therefore work closely with allies, Europe and other partner countries in a long-term perspective to identify and reduce undesirable economic vulnerabilities in an increasingly demanding geopolitical landscape.

4 Increased capacity for crisis management

Our ability to manage crises is paramount to the consequences an incident has for life, health and material assets. We must be able to make decisions, build situational awareness, obtain the necessary expertise and share information.

When an incident occurs, it usually affects several sectors. Serious incidents and crises have cross-sectoral consequences. They may call for coordination between the defence sector and civil sectors, between civil sectors, between different levels of the public administration, and between the public sector and private and voluntary actors.

When dealing with incidents high on the crisis spectrum, there will be a particular need for procedures, instructions and legislation that set out clear, binding and broadly known coordination measures. Training exercises must also be carried out regularly. Although the current crisis management system works well, experiences from the ongoing war in Ukraine, the COVID-19 pandemic, the ‘Viking Sky’ cruise ship incident in 2019 and the extreme weather event ‘Hans’ in 2023 have highlighted the need for clear roles, responsibility and authority.

The Government will:

• ensure that the Ministry of Justice and Public Security will be the permanent lead ministry in the event of national civil crises.

• ensure that the Crisis Support Unit has sufficient authority to obtain necessary information and support the lead ministry.

• ensure that the Directorate for Civil Protection has sufficient authority to obtain the information necessary for the agencies in the civil sector to be able to pull together in an incident.

• reinforce training exercises at all levels.

• involve and collaborate more closely with business and industry in exercises.

• conduct a new national cyber security exercise in 2025.

• contribute to improving access to unclassified and classified communication solutions for relevant civil organisations in the total defence.

• ensure the development of a new emergency network (Nødnett) that meets the need for coverage, national control, security and technological development.

• strengthen helicopter preparedness throughout the country. The security policy situation indicates a particular need to enhance helicopter preparedness in the north.

• present a white paper on drones and new air mobility.

• ensure that the state takes over ownership and management of the part of the coastal radio service that is defined as a special public service obligation when the agreement with Telenor expires on 31 December 2025.

• strengthen the requirements for the ministries’ knowledge preparedness in the Instructions for the Ministries’ work with civil protection and emergency preparedness.

4.1 The crisis management system

The system for central crisis management is described in the Instructions for the Ministries’ work with civil protection and emergency preparedness.2 The instructions state that ‘The ministries shall ensure that operative parties have the necessary authorisation, so that the need for processing at Government level shall not delay management of acute situations where life and health are at risk, or where there may be a major loss of material assets’. The Government, the ministries, the Crisis Council, the lead ministry and the Crisis Support Unit are the core elements of the central crisis management system. Many agencies may also be involved in crisis management, for example by supporting the ministry with specialist advice or through coordination with other actors.

Crises are handled in accordance with provisions granting delegated authority to the executive branch, as well as through the coordination channel and sectoral channels (see Figure 3.1).

Crisis management in accordance with provisions granting delegated authority to the executive branch

Crises require the implementation of measures to safeguard life, health and material assets. Measures can be decided at policy level by the Government and by actors who have been granted authority to implement cross-sectoral measures, including the police, the Joint Rescue Coordination Centre and the Crisis Committee for Nuclear Preparedness. This requires good situational awareness, including good procedures for information sharing and situation reports. This is important both to enable actors to make informed decisions and to ensure coordinated efforts. In war or under threat of war, the Norwegian Armed Forces will also play a key role in crisis management in accordance with their delegated authority.

The coordination channel

The purpose of coordination is to establish a common understanding of the situation by sharing information and jointly assessing cross-sectoral issues, consequences and measures. The lead ministry is responsible for coordinating the cross-sectoral management at ministry level. The Directorate for Civil Protection supports the Ministry of Justice and Public Security’s coordination role, among other things by facilitating cooperation between directorates and acting as a link between county governors and national authorities. The Directorate for Civil Protection also has an independent coordination role in accordance with separate instructions.3The coordination channel is the line of communication between the municipality, the county governor, the Directorate for Civil Protection and the Ministry of Justice and Public Security before, during and after major incidents. It comprises situation reports, coordination conferences and status updates with information from various specialist areas at local, regional and national level. The coordination channel can be used throughout the crisis spectrum, including during security policy crises and war. The Crisis Support Unit at the Ministry of Justice and Public Security, receives and distributes situation reports to the ministries and the Office of the Prime Minister.

Sectoral channels

The ministries are responsible for crisis management within their own sector, in close cooperation with the lead ministry. The Ministry of Health and Care Services, for example, was responsible for handling the medical and healthcare aspects of the COVID-19 pandemic, and similarly, the Ministry of Finance would be responsible for a crisis related to financial stability. Specialist agencies (locally via the regional level and central government agencies) report through sectoral channels to their respective ministries, for example in the areas of health, policing, power and electronic communication. Agencies at different levels coordinate through, among other things, municipal preparedness councils, county preparedness councils and the Directorate for Civil Protection’s coordination conferences (see further description in Section 3.8).

4.2 Clear roles in crisis management

4.2.1 The Government’s role in crisis and war

The Government has the ultimate responsibility for emergency preparedness in Norway. Section 3 of the Norwegian Constitution assigns executive power to the Government/King in Council. In the military sphere, Articles 25 and 26 of the Norwegian Constitution stipulate that the Government, by decision of the King in Council, exercises the supreme military command authority in Norway.

The Government is therefore the supreme body for managing crises, including in war. The Government not only has the right to manage and handle crises by virtue of being the executive power, but also has a duty to act to safeguard the interests of the realm and the lives, health and material assets of its citizens.

In security policy crises and wars, the Government and the King in Council will have to make strategic and fundamental decisions. This could be a decision to declare war in the realm, to mobilise the armed forces, request a declaration of Article 5 of the NATO Pact, request bilateral military support or decisions on evacuation or wartime relocation of the population. The Government will also have to take steps to maintain fundamental civil functions, such as power and electronic communications.

Several decisions in a crisis and war situation are already delegated, for example through the Instructions for the Chief of Defence and the National Preparedness and Response System. Nevertheless, the Government will have overall responsibility, and many decisions in crisis and war must therefore be considered and established in the Government.

The situation in a security policy crisis or war will affect all areas of society. Examples of tasks that may need to be handled by the Government and ministers are listed below:

• Prime Minister (overall and strategic crisis management and head of the Government/Government Security Council).

• Minister of Defence (management of the Armed Forces, allied reinforcement, bilaterally and within the NATO framework.

• Minister of Foreign Affairs (Norway’s relations with other states. Norway’s relations with international organisations. Diplomatic relations).

• Minister of Justice and Public Security (coordination of civil preparedness, coordination of civilian support for military efforts. Law and order, and protection of the civilian population).

• Minister of Finance (ensure a functioning electronic and cash payment system, stability in the money market, safeguard the Government’s foreign exchange reserves and the Government Pension Fund, financing crisis management).

• Minister of Health and Care Services (health preparedness, treatment of wounded and injured)

• Minister of Energy (secure power supply, oil, gas).

• Minister of Trade and Industry and the Minister of Fisheries and Ocean Policy (ensure that business and industry can support civil society and military efforts, responsibility for the merchant fleet (NORTRASHIP scheme), ports, waters and ensure business and industry preparedness).

• Minister of Transport (ensure functioning modes of transport and logistics in all domains. Ensure civilian transport support to national and allied forces).

• Minister of Digitalisation and Public Governance (ensure functioning electronic communication).

• Minister of Agriculture and Food (ensure the country’s food production and food security).

The Prime Minister leads and coordinates the Government’s work, including in times of crisis and war. The Prime Minister decides how the Government will organise its work and which issues will be politically addressed. Many decisions in a crisis or war will have to be made under great time pressure and on an uncertain basis. The need for a sound decision-making basis, broad participation and good coordination must be weighed against efficiency in decision-making processes and real delegation of authority to ministers and agency directors.

Classified matters of a security policy or emergency preparedness nature are normally dealt with by the Government Security Council. In crisis situations, the Government can also choose to appoint temporary government committees if they appear better suited to the nature of the crisis, as was the case for the Solberg Government’s COVID-19 committee during the handling of the pandemic in 2020-2021.

Efforts to manage major incidents and crises, such as 22 July, the refugee crisis in 2015, the COVID-19 pandemic and the Ukraine war, require an ability to establish a common understanding of the situation across ministries and sectors, handle large numbers of individual cases and assess the overall strategic direction of crisis management. There is a crucial need for coordinated, clear and tailored communication to the public in this type of extensive and cross-sectoral crisis. In security policy crises and war situations, international dialogue and coordination of efforts between allies and other partner countries will also be essential.

The Office of the Prime Minister assists the Prime Minister in leading and coordinating the Government’s work, possibly in other formats such as the Government Security Council. In this role, the Office of the Prime Minister has extensive contact with the ministries to ensure the best possible basis for decision-making. The Office of the Prime Minister also advises the Prime Minister on handling of the matters and assists the ministries in following up the Government’s conclusions. The Office of the Prime Minister also organises the Prime Minister’s international meetings, and in crises of international significance and war situations, this will often take place at head of state level. In a serious crisis and war, the prime minister’s communication with the country’s citizens will be particularly important. The Office of the Prime Minister will as such normally take a coordinating role in communicating with the public in such situations.

Based on lessons learned from handling several major incidents and crises in recent years, the Government will revise the Instructions for the Ministries’ work with civil protection and emergency preparedness. The Government will clarify that the Government is the supreme body for crisis management, and in this connection, also clarify the role of the Prime Minister as Head of Government. Furthermore, the Government will clarify the role of the Office of the Prime Minister in assisting the Prime Minister and the Government, both during crisis management and in ongoing national security efforts. To increase capacity around the Prime Minister in this area, the Office of the Prime Minister has appointed several more full-time equivalents.

4.2.2 The Ministry of Justice and Public Security as the permanent lead ministry in the event of national civil crises

In accordance with the Instructions for the Ministries’ work with civil protection and emergency preparedness, the Ministry of Justice and Public Security is the permanent lead ministry in national civil crises unless otherwise specified. The lead ministry is tasked with coordinating crisis management at ministry level. The designation of a lead ministry does not entail any changes in constitutional responsibilities, and all ministries retain responsibility and decision-making authority for their respective sectors.

Experience has shown that incidents often require one ministry to coordinate their handling across sectors. This applies regardless of whether the event is defined as a national crisis, as there is no clear-cut distinction between crises and other serious incidents. The Ministry of Justice and Public Security nonetheless has a general coordinating role in civil protection efforts. This role means that the Ministry of Justice and Public Security is responsible for comprehensive, systematic and risk-based civil protection work at the national level across all sectors, including ensuring that issues that cut across sectors and critical societal functions are dealt with and, where necessary, assisting the ministries in clarifying responsibilities.

The coordination role and the role of the lead ministry largely require the same type of expertise, regardless of whether the incident is defined as a crisis. It is therefore natural for both roles to be handled by the same ministry. A ministry that has rarely or never previously had the role of lead ministry will not have the same prerequisites as the Ministry of Justice and Public Security to fulfil this role. The Government will therefore designate the Ministry of Justice and Public Security as the permanent lead ministry in the event of national civil crises. There is no longer an expectation that all ministries should be able to take on the role as lead ministry. The Instructions for the Ministries’ work with civil protection and emergency preparedness will be updated in line with this.

In accordance with Section 1 of the Foreign Service Act, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs has a special responsibility for crisis incidents abroad that affect Norwegian citizens or interests. The Ministry of Justice and Public Security will support the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and address the need for cross-sectoral coordination in Norway. In security policy crises and armed conflicts, the Ministry of Defence and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs will, by virtue of their sectoral responsibilities, address defence, security and foreign policy issues.

Serious incidents may affect many sectors, and all ministries must contribute to cross-sectoral management in close cooperation with the lead ministry. All ministries must also be prepared to lead the part of the crisis management that falls within their areas of responsibility. For example, the Ministry of Finance will fulfil this role in the event of major disruptions or crises in the economy or the financial system as a whole, including by coordinating, proposing and implementing extraordinary measures.

4.2.3 New powers for the Crisis Support Unit

In accordance with the Instructions for the Ministries’ work with civil protection and emergency preparedness, the Crisis Support Unit’s mission is twofold. It supports the lead ministry and the Crisis Council, as well as the Ministry of Justice and Public Security in the ministry’s coordination role. In addition, the Crisis Support Unit has a role in the Ministry of Justice and Public Security’s internal incident management. An important part of the Crisis Support Unit is the Civil Situation Centre, which is the Ministry of Justice and Public Security’s permanent point of contact for incidents and crises. The Civil Situation Centre operates 24 hours a day and assists by reinforcing the cross-sectoral flow of information in the event of incidents and crises.

Whereas central crisis management, including the role of the lead ministry and the tasks of the Crisis Support Unit were previously intended for national civil crises, the current situation warrants a permanent need to safeguard several of these tasks both on a day-to-day basis and during incident and crisis management.

One of the Crisis Support Unit’s tasks is to help establish a common understanding of the situation as a basis for strategic decisions. To establish situational awareness during incident and crisis management, the Unit needs information from affected sectors. Experience has shown that the Crisis Support Unit lacks the powers necessary to obtain information from ministries and other actors. Such information provides a better basis for recognising changes in the normal situation and establishing a common understanding of the situation when handling incidents and crises. The Government will ensure that the Crisis Support Unit has sufficient powers to obtain the necessary information and support the lead ministry.

4.2.4 New powers for the Directorate for Civil Protection

The Directorate for Civil Protection is tasked with contributing to efficient and effective dialogue between the agencies concerned, particularly with respect to cross-sectoral challenges. Coordination conferences are an important tool in crisis management and are used to share information and situational awareness with relevant actors. Current coordination conferences are based on voluntary participation, but it is important that all relevant actors participate, share necessary information and raise issues that cut across sectors. This helps to identify challenges, highlight cross-sectoral dependencies and any ambiguities in roles and responsibilities, and clarify the necessary follow-up of incidents or crises.

The Government will therefore give the Directorate for Civil Protection clearer powers in its coordination role. Such powers are intended to ensure that the Directorate has access to the information necessary for the agencies in the civil sectors to pull together in an incident. The new powers will be established in a way that does not conflict with existing and sectoral emergency preparedness and crisis management arrangements.

Coordination activities and cross-sectoral crisis management

The Directorate for Civil Protection’s coordination activities during incidents and crises must not interfere with the operational management and possible investigation of incidents. Giving the Directorate clearer powers must not affect constitutional responsibilities, or the responsibilities or powers of other agencies and authorities.

The revised remit will also help to clarify the interface between the Directorate for Civil Protection’s coordination role and other actors in crisis management. This is particularly important in relation to actors with delegated authority, such as the police, the Joint Rescue Coordination Centre and the Crisis Committee for Nuclear Preparedness, which, in the acute phase of a crisis, have the authority and power to initiate and organise cross-sectoral efforts in incidents that pose a threat to human life and health. It is also important to clarify the interface with actors that are assigned emergency preparedness and coordination roles on the Norwegian continental shelf.

4.3 Training exercises – ready for crisis, prepared for war

Exercises are a means of training, testing and further developing national preparedness, including the total defence concept. They are also an effective tool for maintaining and improving crisis management expertise, and for further developing plans and procedures.

We have conducted training exercises more frequently over the past few years. This has included different types of exercises, at different levels of the public administration, in different sectors and for different purposes. More emphasis has been placed on training for civilian support to military efforts as part of military exercises. Since Sweden and Finland became members of NATO, joint military exercises have been carried out in which civil sectors have also taken part in exercises across national borders. The business sector has invited public authorities such as ministries and agencies to participate in their training exercises. Efforts to carry out more cross-sectoral exercises, expand military exercises with the participation of civil sectors, as well as close cooperation with the business and voluntary sectors, will continue.

It is essential that exercises are organised at all levels. Exercises for various scenarios must be organised on a regular basis and made part of ongoing preparedness efforts.

4.3.1 Strategic framework for national exercises in civil sectors

National exercises involve several administrative levels and/or sectors in the same training exercise. The choice of objective, scenario and type of exercise may be based on threat and risk assessments and evaluations from previous exercises and incidents, and is aligned with affected actors. The term ‘national exercises in civil sectors’ does not preclude exercises with participation from the Armed Forces.

The Government will establish a strategic framework for national civil exercises. The purpose is to contribute to a more comprehensive approach to national civil exercises, and ensure consistency between goals and means. The framework is intended to provide a sound decision-making basis when prioritising national exercises in civil sectors. It will also help to ensure that civil participation in military exercises is planned with a more long-term and predictable planning horizon. The framework will help to further develop the use of military exercises for civilian capability to support military efforts in security policy crises and war. See Box 4.4 for information about total defence exercises.

Based on the framework, a multi-year plan is drawn up for national exercises, which is continuously maintained and coordinated with the training exercise plan for the defence sector. The Government will also start work on a strategy for national civil exercise activities.

4.3.2 Total Defence Year 2026

The Directorate for Civil Protection and the Norwegian Armed Forces will collaborate on planning the Total Defence Year 2026 as a new important milestone in total defence efforts. The Total Defence Year will consist of a series of exercises and planning activities in 2025 and 2026. The year will end with a major total defence exercise that will include several levels of authority and appropriate participation from private and voluntary organisations. To prepare for the Total Defence Year 2026, the Directorate for Civil Protection has drawn up a list of measures with proposals for activities that should be prioritised in the development of total defence. The ministries can use this list to prioritise tasks in their respective sectors. The Directorate for Civil Protection will hold a national experience seminar in 2027 to learn from experience of the Total Defence Year.

4.3.3 Digital 2025 exercise

The Digital 2025 exercise represents the start of the Total Defence Year 2026. To strengthen our national capability to prevent and manage serious cyber incidents, we must raise our competence and awareness. Norway has a long tradition of conducting national cyber exercises, including the IKT 08, IKT 16 and Digital 2020 exercises. The Government has decided to conduct a new national cyber security exercise in 2025. The Directorate for Civil Protection is leading the planning of the exercise in close collaboration with the Norwegian National Security Authority and key players from business and industry and the public administration. A key element of the exercise is the involvement of and cooperation with the business community. The exercise is carried out within the framework of total defence and with a security policy backdrop.

Photo: Tore Ellingsen/Norwegian Armed Forces.

4.4 Secure communication in crisis and war

Efficient and secure communication and information sharing between undertakings involved in total defence, and between the authorities and the general public, is a prerequisite for a well-functioning total defence. Total defence undertakings must have access to unclassified and classified communication systems to have the capability to handle, interact and understand situations. Expertise in how new technologies can and should be used is important to this end. Education, training and exercises are key activities.

Digital communication is essential for incident management. Norway has a good digital infrastructure, with three mobile networks and well-developed broadband networks that must also be further developed. In addition, other digital infrastructure has been developed for certain critical societal functions, including Nødnett and Kystradio. In 2023, the Government launched the emergency alert system Nødvarsel, which allows the authorities to send national public alerts over mobile networks. Work is also underway on a national cloud service (see Box 9.1).

Nødnett emergency network

Nødnett is a national, digital communication network and is an important tool in total defence. It provides secure communication for the police, the Norwegian Police Security Service (PST), fire and rescue service, health and care services, and other organisations with emergency and preparedness responsibilities in their daily work, during exercises and in connection with major incidents. The development of the emergency network is one of the largest public security investments ever made in Norway and has significantly raised the country’s emergency preparedness. Widespread utilisation of the network has been a key objective in the development and implementation of the solution and is of significant public benefit. In addition to the core users in the emergency services, the network is also used by volunteer rescue organisations, central government actors, municipalities, industrial safety systems and power companies. The Government has approved and will enter into a contract to extend the operation of the current Nødnett network until 2031.

The Government has initiated a pilot project for the procurement and implementation of the next generation of the network, which combines state ownership and purchases from commercial mobile network operators. The combination capitalises on the strengths of the public and private sectors. The Government will utilise various instruments, such as ownership, the Security Act, regulation, supervision and contracts to achieve a sufficient degree of national control and security in the new emergency network. A new, robust communications solution is crucial to society’s ability to prevent and handle incidents and further strengthen total defence.

Kystradio coastal radio service

Norway is required by international conventions to have a communication system that can receive emergency and assistance messages from seafarers. The telecommunications companies Telegrafverket/Televerket/Telenor have been responsible for coastal radio services on behalf of the state for over 100 years. The coastal radio service Telenor Kystradio receives emergency alerts and communicates with people in distress and rescue resources at sea. They ensure that the Joint Rescue Coordination Centre, which leads and coordinates rescue operations, can communicate with vessels and people in distress. The radio operators at Telenor’s coastal radio service have been co-located with the Joint Rescue Coordination Centre since 2018.

The agreement with Telenor expires on 31 December 2025. Telenor has run the coastal radio service well over the years. Extending the current agreement with Telenor is not possible within the current procurement regulations, and a continued commercial coastal radio service requires that the service is put out to tender.

It has been decided that the state will take over ownership and management of the coastal radio service, which is defined as a special public service obligation, when the agreement expires. This means that the state will take over listening watch and emergency communications duties, and the operation of technical infrastructure from 1 January 2026. The rules for transfer of undertakings will apply when these duties are transferred to the state. The recommendation is that the radio operators are transferred to the Joint Rescue Coordination Centre. The current locations of the coastal radio stations will be continued. This means that the radio operators will continue to work in Bodø and Sola.

Photo: Anette Ask/Norwegian Armed Forces.

The decision also means that the state will take over the technical equipment used to exercise the public service obligation. The state has a contractual right to take over ownership of the relevant equipment/infrastructure free of charge. This involves operating technical infrastructure, including the technical centre at Sola. The state will not take over commercial activities that Telenor has built up in connection with the coastal radio service.

Classified communication solutions

The security policy situation, and the complexity and vulnerability of society, entail a greater need for secure and efficient communication at a classified level. Improved interaction, situational awareness and communication between undertakings and authorities increases management capability. On 1 January 2025, a separate agency, The Norwegian Agency for Classified Information Systems, was established under the Ministry of Defence. The agency will be responsible for delivering classified communication solutions to organisations in the civilian and defence sectors. The agency will be a key supplier of national classified platforms to public and private actors in the total defence and other undertakings subject to the Security Act. The restricted communication network Nasjonalt BEGRENSET Nett (NBN) is currently used by around 170 undertakings and more than 10,000 users, and demand is growing. The secret communication network Nasjonalt HEMMELIG nett (NHN) is under development and will soon be available to prioritised users. The Government will prioritise the continued roll-out of classified ICT solutions across sectors with total defence responsibilities.

Secure public network SON

SON (Sikret Offentlig Nett) is a high-speed data network to and between SON participants, where the participants have control over the physical infrastructure. SON is based on internet technology and consists of an encrypted network based on redundant paths. It currently covers several critical functions in society, including secure and redundant transfer of unclassified, low-grade and high-grade classified data, and internal communication between connected participants. Over time, SON has developed into an important solution that has also become more significant in the delivery of other services. A number of private actors wish to connect to SON. In order to further develop the system’s potential and ensure greater geographical coverage, it will be necessary to lease fibre or channels from relevant actors. The Government will transfer the administrative ownership of SON to the newly established Government Classified Platform Services, which will be tasked with managing and further developing the system.

4.5 Civil helicopter preparedness throughout the country

Norway has a wide range of helicopter types for various purposes in connection with civil, military, commercial and private use. Helicopter use in Norway is extensive and varied, with applications ranging from military operations, civilian services and leisure activities. On the civilian side, helicopters are essential for air ambulance services, policing, transport to and from oil installations in the North Sea, and for transport missions in various industries. Helicopters are also used for rescue services, fighting forest fires and monitoring natural resources and the environment. Helicopters play a critical role in ensuring both national security and the day-to-day functioning of society in Norway.

Helicopters differ from other response assets in that they can enable a rapid response over longer distances, especially in parts of the country with few road axes or long fjords. In 2024, around 200 helicopters, including both civil and military machines, were registered in Norway. Much of the helicopter capacity is concentrated around southern Norway and offshore operations.

The SAR Queen rescue helicopters are in operation at six bases (see Section 2.1). The SAR Queen can fly further, faster, has better sensor capacity and is better at operating in bad weather conditions than the Sea King helicopters that have now been phased out. This will make it possible to rescue people faster and ensure they receive medical attention more rapidly at a hospital. SAR Queen has already proved to be a significant resource for the Norwegian rescue service and an additional resource in the air ambulance service.

The Government will assess the national helicopter capacity in the short and long term, including how public (civil and military), commercial and private air capacity can be better utilised to strengthen emergency preparedness throughout the country. The Government will strengthen emergency preparedness in helicopter transport throughout the country. The security policy situation indicates a particular need to enhance helicopter preparedness in the north.

Photo: Fabian Helmersen/Norwegian Armed Forces.

4.6 Drones and new air mobility

Aviation is undergoing considerable changes, with drones and new air mobility4 now able to carry out increasingly complex operations in a safe, efficient and sustainable way. They can be used in both urban and rural areas, and on the Norwegian continental shelf. Search and rescue, police missions and infrastructure inspections are examples of areas where the use of drones is under rapid development.

However, more extensive use of drones and new air mobility can pose challenges in the form of new types of aviation accidents and incidents, crime and security challenges. The trend may also bring challenges related to the privacy of individuals and noise pollution caused by drones being flown near people and nature. It may also prove problematic to enforce regulations in practice.

The Government wants Norway to remain a pioneer in the responsible and innovative use of drones and new air mobility, and has initiated work on a white paper. This will highlight both societal benefits and challenges associated with the development of drones and new air mobility, and the framework conditions for the industry. The Government aims to present the report to the Storting in 2025.

4.7 Knowledge preparedness and knowledge in crises

The COVID-19 pandemic demonstrated that we need to be better prepared to handle knowledge needs when a crisis occurs, as pointed out by the Coronavirus Commission (cf. Norwegian official report (NOU) 2021: 6). It could, for example, be necessary to know more about the effect of measures, how measures in one sector can have consequences in another sector, or how an incident can be expected to develop. Knowledge that forms the basis for decision-making in crisis situations must be of the necessary quality, relevant and available quickly. Status descriptions, ongoing analysis, real-time research and good impact studies require the production and collection of new data and statistics, rapid access to and use of existing data, the ability to share and link data, collaboration on analyses across units and sectors, sufficient network and computing capacity, and sufficient capacity to summarise and communicate relevant insights.

To improve the knowledge system for managing crises and follow up the Coronavirus Commission, the Government established the core group for a better knowledge system for crisis management (Knowledge in crises) in 2022. The core group works on the premise that the knowledge systems to be used during a crisis should be in place under normal circumstances. Any legal issues related to, for example, the collection, use and sharing of data should have been clarified as far as possible to ensure that they are not a barrier to effective crisis management.

According to the Instructions for the Ministries’ work with civil protection and emergency preparedness, each ministry is responsible for advancing knowledge-based work, research and development within its own sector. The ministries must have a thorough understanding of the knowledge needs that may arise during a serious incident and which knowledge environments could be relevant contributors in order to identify knowledge needs as quickly as possible during a crisis and initiate knowledge production. By revising the Instructions for the Ministries’ work with civil protection and emergency preparedness, the Government will strengthen the requirements for the ministries’ knowledge preparedness.

5 Strong local communities and good basic preparedness

The fact that people live in all parts of the country contributes to our preparedness. However, large parts of rural Norway are experiencing population decline in addition to an ageing population.5 Reversing this trend in the form of increased decentralisation of people, services and capital is a Government goal. The Government will therefore facilitate thriving local communities and jobs throughout the country. Measures are being implemented along several tracks to ensure robust local communities and good basic preparedness. The Government’s policy for building robust and good local communities in the north is described in more detail in Section 10.4. This work will also help to assess whether a similar process can be used to strengthen civil resilience in other geographical areas.

In this chapter, we present the Government’s policy for strengthening key preparedness actors to ensure robust local communities and good basic preparedness. Municipalities, emergency services and other preparedness actors must be prepared to deal with incidents ranging from local incidents with a very limited scope, through major crises of a national scope, and in the worst-case scenario, to war.

The Government will:

• provide a comprehensive policy that ensures settlement throughout the country.

• strengthen local and regional civil total defence work.

• formalise the requirement that all municipalities must have or be affiliated with a municipal preparedness council.

• take steps to ensure that municipal preparedness management has clear lines of responsibility by setting requirements for municipal preparedness councils.

• assess how the role of municipal emergency preparedness coordinator can be further developed and improved.

• facilitate greater support and guidance to municipalities through the development of guidelines and tools aimed at improving emergency preparedness.

• establish a reinforcement scheme for municipalities exercising crisis management in the areas of psychosocial support, communication and support for staff functions in crisis coordination.

• commission the Directorate for Civil Protection to prepare a cross-sectoral guide to the role and responsibilities of municipalities during armed conflict, the threat of war and similar circumstances.

• commission the Civil Security Clearance Authority to prepare a guide for security clearance of personnel at the municipal level to clarify roles, responsibilities and needs.

• strengthen the county governor’s advisory and guidance role and responsibility as a supervisory authority.

• facilitate a better basis from which the county authorities can fulfil their responsibilities in the field of public security and emergency preparedness.

• clarify the county authority’s responsibility for civil transport preparedness.

• assess mandatory response times for all emergency services.

• ensure that the emergency services continue to have a decentralised structure.

• increase the number of conscripts in the Norwegian Civil Defence from 8,000 to 12,000 over an eight-year period.

• assess what can and should be expected of the fire and rescue service, the rescue services, the police and the Norwegian Police Security Service’s capacities and tasks in a crisis or war.

• continue to ensure the presence of the Norwegian Police Security Service throughout the country and particularly in vulnerable areas.

• appoint a police role committee to assess the role and tasks of the police in light of the needs and expected developments in society.

• ensure a regulatory framework that safeguards our national ability to detect and counter activity by foreign states in Norway that threatens security.

• present a white paper in spring 2025 on extremism to follow up on the Extremism Commission’s report.

• conduct a status report on the national counterterrorism strategy, as the basis for a possible revision in 2025.

• prepare a national risk and vulnerability analysis that will form the basis for ensuring tangible national support resources for the fire and rescue services throughout the country.

• establish a financial escalation plan for the voluntary organisations in the rescue service of up to NOK 100 million over 8 years. In collaboration with the voluntary organisations, an assessment will be made of how the funding can be as targeted as possible.

5.1 Strengthen municipalities’ emergency preparedness work

The municipalities are a mainstay of national preparedness and an important interdisciplinary coordination arena. Municipalities play an important role in ensuring public safety, both through the day-to-day services they provide but also through their preparedness to deal with crises.

5.1.1 Requirement for a municipal preparedness council

Municipalities have a comprehensive responsibility for emergency preparedness across the entire crisis spectrum. Their keys duties include comprehensive risk and vulnerability analyses, an overall emergency preparedness plan, exercises and crisis management. The municipalities’ responsibility for emergency preparedness is regulated by the Act on municipal preparedness duty, civil protection and the Norwegian Civil Defence (Civil Protection Act) and the Health and Social Preparedness Act (Health Preparedness Act) with associated regulations. Municipalities are also subject to the Security Act. In addition, municipalities are planning authorities, which is of great importance in efforts to prevent the consequences of future climate-related events.

Municipal preparedness councils are important for the municipalities’ coordination and leading roles in security and emergency preparedness efforts. Preparedness councils often consist of local stakeholders from both the political and administrative leadership of the municipality, representatives from the voluntary sector, the business community and public bodies such as the police, the Norwegian Civil Defence and the Armed Forces. Municipal preparedness councils are an important arena for the mutual exchange of information, discussion and coordination of emergency preparedness work in the municipality. The councils are also important for sharing situational awareness at local level. This can improve the quality of the municipalities’ reporting to the county governor. However, the preparedness councils do not have decision-making authority. It is up to the individual agency and municipality to exercise the authority assigned to them.

It is not currently a requirement for municipalities to have, or be affiliated with, a municipal preparedness council. County governors are required to have a county preparedness council with more detailed requirements for participation and the council’s role. The municipal survey for 2024 shows that 75% of Norway’s municipalities have established municipal preparedness councils.

The Government will strengthen emergency preparedness work in the municipalities by requiring the municipalities to have, or be affiliated with, a municipal preparedness council. This will be ensured by amending the Civil Protection Act. A requirement to ‘be affiliated with’ allows municipalities to collaborate on such a council. Which solution the municipalities choose must be based on local assessments. The solution will provide sufficient flexibility to take account of municipalities’ resource situation, unique characteristics and possibility of autonomy, and ensure closer integration of the voluntary and private sectors in security and preparedness efforts.

By setting requirements for municipal preparedness councils, the Government will ensure that the management of municipal preparedness efforts has clear lines of responsibility, while also facilitating a more unified council structure from the municipality via the county governor to the Directorate for Civil Protection (see Figure 3.1).

Clear and effective management of municipal preparedness work is important for local implementation of preventive and damage control measures. Compliance with the municipal preparedness requirements paves the way for effective management of municipal emergency preparedness and the coordination of prevention, contingency planning and crisis management. Based on comprehensive risk and vulnerability analyses, municipalities must develop preparedness plans that clarify the municipality’s crisis management and its responsibilities, roles and powers.

It is emphasised that the position of municipal preparedness coordinator is not statutory, but the designation comprises people in the municipality who have key roles in efforts to meet statutory requirements in the area of public security and emergency preparedness. The emergency preparedness coordinators help to bring together and coordinate internal preparedness tasks, and contribute to increased awareness of public security and preparedness in the municipalities. The Government will assess how the role of municipal preparedness coordinator can be further developed.

5.1.2 Better guidance and support from national sector authorities

The development of guidance, a knowledge base and digital solutions and tools are important steps to supporting the municipalities’ preparedness work. There are several examples of measures that help the municipalities to comply with regulatory requirements in a simpler, better and more uniform way. Among the sector authorities that contribute to this are the Norwegian Water Resources and Energy Directorate through the mapping of hazard zones for the municipalities, and the Directorate for Civil Protection through the guide to comprehensive risk and vulnerability analyses, as well as guides addressing more specific areas.

Work is also underway to develop a digital solution that will support the municipalities’ work on risk and vulnerability analyses. In the area of natural hazards, the Norwegian Mapping Authority and the Norwegian Environment Agency also play important roles in making relevant data, tools and guidelines available to support the municipalities’ work. The police, the Norwegian Police Security Service and the Norwegian National Security Authority play important roles with regard to intentional acts, and contribute knowledge through threat and risk assessments.

A number of municipalities have inadequate compliance with several of the requirements in the municipal preparedness duty. Guidance and support from national sector authorities is an important area of action to improve municipalities’ compliance with their preparedness duties. An increasingly demanding challenge landscape makes this need more pressing. The Government will facilitate greater support and guidance to municipalities through the development of guidelines and tools aimed at improving preparedness.

Municipalities play important roles in war, including as owners of municipal infrastructure such as water and electricity supply and in light of their responsibility for critical service areas such as fire and rescue services and healthcare. The municipalities also play an important role in total defence work as local planning authorities. It is important that total defence considerations are taken into account in social planning at national, regional and local levels. The Government will therefore commission the Directorate for Civil Protection to prepare a guide to clarify the roles and responsibilities of the municipalities. The Government will also commission the Civil Security Clearance Authority to prepare a guide for security clearance of personnel at the municipal level to clarify roles, responsibilities and needs.

As a regional coordinating authority for the central government, and a link between the municipalities and the central government, the county governors also play an important guidance role for the municipal sector.

5.1.3 Establish a reinforcement scheme for municipal crisis management

In the Government’s view, municipalities that are severely affected by major incidents must receive the rapid assistance they need from regional and national levels. In resource-intensive incidents that occur infrequently, there may be a need to support municipalities in terms of expertise and capacity that are not appropriate or possible to establish in each individual municipality.

The Total Preparedness Commission recommended establishing a municipal reinforcement scheme that formalises support from national and regional emergency preparedness actors. These can be utilised at the request of the municipality. The Commission highlighted the need for resources related to psycho-social support, communication and coordination, which are factors in all major crises.

The Government therefore finds it necessary to review and systematise which regional and national resources could assist municipalities affected by extraordinary incidents. The Government will therefore establish a reinforcement scheme for municipal crisis management. The resources in the reinforcement scheme must be readily available at short notice, and there must be a clear overview of who is involved, where the resources are and what expertise they possess. Such a scheme will primarily represent a safety net for municipal emergency preparedness. Ordinary responsibilities and municipal autonomy remain unchanged even if the municipality asks for assistance in addressing specific tasks.

The Government will initiate efforts to detail the organisation of the scheme, both in terms of the resources to be included, the interface with existing preparedness schemes, and the roles and responsibilities of relevant actors. These efforts must be seen in the context of the Government’s strengthening of the role of county governor, see Section 5.3.

5.2 The responsibilities and tasks of the county authority in security and emergency preparedness

The county authority is the elected body at regional level. The ministries and central government agencies have assigned the county authorities key tasks in regional public security and emergency preparedness work. This includes conducting parliamentary elections, county authority elections, transport and civil transport preparedness, business and industry preparedness, public health measures, cultural heritage management, the public dental service and upper secondary education.

County authorities have an important planning and development role at regional level, including the role of regional planning authority. It is important in this role to see different sector goals, policy instruments and measures in context. This applies in particular to cross-cutting societal challenges that require the efforts of several actors and administrative levels, such as public security and emergency preparedness. Regional risk and vulnerability analyses must form the basis for regional planning. Good planning can help prevent undesirable incidents and facilitate more resilient communities.

The county authorities are tasked with mobilising and coordinating regional development. It is important that the instruments associated with regional planning are utilised. This requires good coordination across sectors and administrative levels, and includes the involvement of municipalities in regional planning processes and interaction with central government agencies in regional planning. The Total Preparedness Commission highlighted the need to clarify the county authorities’ responsibility for public security, and that this responsibility must also be clarified for municipalities, other regional actors and ministries. The Government will therefore facilitate a better basis from which the county authorities can fulfil their responsibilities in the field of public security and emergency preparedness.

The county authorities’ responsibility for civil transport preparedness

The county authorities are responsible for planning, building, operating and maintaining the county road network, including county ferry routes, as well as for the development and operation of regional public transport. The framework and schemes for county roads are dealt with in Report No 14 to the Storting (2023–2024) National Transport Plan 2025–2036 – Summary, cf. Recommendation No 439 to the Storting (2023–2024). The county road network is extensive and has crucial functions. Together with the national road network, it ensures a comprehensive road network for passenger and industrial transport. Accessibility and road safety on the county road network are important for settlement and the labour market across the country. County roads also have an important emergency preparedness function as bypasses for the national road network. Some sections of county roads are also important for military mobility and access to critical infrastructure.

The county authorities’ responsibilities related to transport preparedness are described in the Regulations relating to civil transport preparedness. The county authorities are responsible for ensuring and facilitating necessary and regionally adapted civil transport preparedness in the county, and must work alongside the county governor, police, transport industry and other civil and military authorities to optimise the coordination of transport preparedness. Based on risk and vulnerability analyses, the county authority must have an overview of the county’s transport needs in the event of different types of crisis, what types of transport needs may be involved, which actors in the county operate freight and passenger transport and how efforts can be most expediently organised. At the request of a ministry, the county governor, police or other civil or military authority, the county authority must be able to provide transport-related advice and liaise with operators involved in freight and passenger transport in the county.

The Regulations relating to civil transport preparedness do not contain any legal basis for the county authorities to order an actor to carry out transport assignments. The legal basis for this is Section 36 of the Professional Transport Act, with the Ministry of Transport as the decision-making authority.

5.3 Strengthening the county governor’s coordination and guidance role

The county governor is Norway’s foremost representative in the county, and the central link between national authorities and local administration. The county governor has several important duties relating to emergency preparedness, civil resilience and total defence, including:

• Chairing the county preparedness council

• Developing the municipalities’ capability for prevention, preparedness and crisis management

• Ensuring that public security and emergency preparedness efforts at regional level are coordinated and equipped for crisis management

• Coordinating civilian efforts in total defence at the county level, and contributing to mutual support between the civilian sector and the Armed Forces at the regional level

• In the event of war, threat of war and similar circumstances, the county governor must ensure that the county’s resources are distributed and utilised in a way that best meets the needs of the population, coordinate and prioritise between civilian needs and pass on extra resources to the municipalities, and contribute to the procurement, coordination and prioritisation of civilian support to the Armed Forces.

• In the event of war, threat of war or similar circumstances where the county is cut off from communication with the Government, the county must take the necessary steps to safeguard the interests of society, cf. Section 5 of the Emergency Preparedness Act (Beredskapsloven).

There is an expectation among municipalities and regional emergency preparedness actors that the county governor must contribute more to emergency planning, guidance and training exercises, as well as the management of incidents and crises. Like the consequences of climate change, the deteriorating security policy situation will place greater demands on regional and local resilience. The county governor is responsible for advising, guiding and driving the work on public security and emergency preparedness in the county, and acts as a link between municipalities, and between municipalities and central government authorities. The county governor also plays an important role in helping to ensure that renewed attention is given to war planning as part of public security.

The Total Preparedness Commission believes that the county governor’s coordination capacity, including providing guidance and support to municipalities, is under pressure. The Commission also notes that the county governors have had to draw on large parts of the organisation for preparedness work to fulfil their coordination role during both the COVID-19 pandemic and the war in Ukraine, and that this has been demanding to maintain over time while also seeing to their other duties. In the Government’s view, the county governor’s capability for regional coordination and for supporting and guiding the municipalities must therefore be bolstered. The Government has followed this issue up.

The Government has proposed, and the Storting has approved, increasing the funding to county governors by NOK 34 million in the budget for 2025. The purpose is to intensify county governors’ efforts to increase the capability of local and regional levels to provide civil support to military operations, ensure continuity of critical societal functions and protect the civilian population from the consequences of crisis and war. The Government is also strengthening the Home Guard, which plays an important role on the military side of the total defence by coordinating and cooperating with civil authorities at regional and local level (cf. Prop. 87 to the Storting (2023–2024)). The Government has also begun work on upgrading certain secure regional facilities to improve the cooperation capacity of the specific area and regional level in the total defence, thereby contributing to increased resilience. This will also strengthen the classified communication capability in the total defence at local and regional level.

5.4 Key preparedness actors in security policy crises and war

Key emergency preparedness actors have the same roles and responsibilities in security policy crises and war as in normal situations. However, they may be faced with new tasks and prioritisation needs. In addition to those described below, a number of other actors play key roles in emergency preparedness and total defence. This includes sector agencies, local and regional resources and private businesses.

5.4.1 The Joint Rescue Coordination Centre and the rescue service

The rescue service is a civil function that utilises all of society’s resources to save lives. Air and sea rescue is established in international law in a number of conventions and agreements. The service is organised as a collaboration between public, private and voluntary organisations, and works closely with the Norwegian Armed Forces.

How the rescue service should function in crises and war is inadequately described in current plans, and they must therefore be developed and updated to take into account the challenges associated with the principle of distinction6 in the international law of war.

The Joint Rescue Coordination Centre and subordinate local rescue centres must also ensure the organisation and coordination of the rescue services in armed conflict and war. This applies in all domains (land, sea and air rescue). Norway must be prepared to fulfil its international search and rescue obligations also during armed conflict and war.

At the high end of the crisis spectrum, given the current conditions, it is possible that the rescue service will face challenges in terms of its organisation and management structure. The Joint Rescue Coordination Centre must be prepared for changed circumstances around the main mission of other organisations contributing to rescue operations, and adapt its organisation and missions accordingly.

High up in the crisis spectrum, there will be uncertainty about the actual availability of public, private and voluntary resources. Greater mobilisation of personnel and requisitioning of equipment for the Armed Forces could lead to fewer available resources and a weakening of the rescue response for emergency handling of land, air and sea incidents. At the same time, the need for rescue services may increase radically. Necessary measures should be prepared to ensure the best possible rescue response in the event of weakening or loss of a critical organisation, management, personnel and equipment.

Photo: Helitrans.

5.4.2 Voluntary organisations

Voluntary organisations play an important role in total defence. The framework conditions for voluntary organisations will change significantly in times of war compared with ordinary emergency preparedness efforts and handling of incidents lower on the crisis spectrum. In situations high on the crisis spectrum, a significant proportion of personnel in voluntary organisations may be mobilised for service in the Armed Forces, or for other service through, for example, civil workforce preparedness (see Section 10.5.2). Furthermore, the need for extra work capacity for ordinary employers may increase, limiting the remaining capacity for voluntary efforts. It is therefore important to ensure that contributions from voluntary organisations can also be maintained in the event of incidents high on the crisis spectrum. This may, for example, mean that key personnel in voluntary organisations must be exempted from other civil service obligations or, in the worst case, that they can serve compulsory service in a voluntary organisation. Voluntary efforts must be planned within the framework of the international law of war and the principle of distinction. Experience from Ukraine shows that voluntary efforts contribute to the country’s defence capability.

The Government wants to ensure that the voluntary organisations in the rescue service remain a key part of Norway’s basic preparedness. The Government will therefore increase funding, by up to NOK 100 million, for volunteers in the rescue service, scaling the funding up over eight years. In collaboration with the voluntary organisations, an assessment will be made of how the funding can be as targeted as possible. The Government has proposed, and the Storting has approved, an increase of NOK 6 million in grants to voluntary organisations in the rescue service in 2025. This increase is in line with the Total Preparedness Commission’s proposal to increase grants to voluntary organisations in the rescue service, and is necessary to maintain voluntary efforts as a mainstay of the rescue service throughout the country. The organisations need funds to be able to maintain a high level of professional expertise, have good operational equipment and materials, and funds to increase their capacity throughout the country.

In recent years, more has been expected of the crews of voluntary rescue and emergency response organisations. They are expected to have greater competence and be able to contribute to more aspects of a mission. This development is expected to continue and will place greater demands on the equipment the volunteers use. Equipment is important for both operational capability and crew safety. The personal equipment of volunteer resources has become more advanced over the years and better suited to the tasks they have to fulfil. This leads to higher equipment costs, however, and costs can be expected to rise further in step with technological developments.

Religious and faith communities are also an important resource in emergency preparedness work. Experiences from the COVID-19 pandemic showed that religious and faith organisations enjoy great trust and are able to establish contact with groups in the population that the public authorities had difficulty reaching. This was of great importance for conveying important health information. Based on the pandemic and the Total Preparedness Commission’s recommendation that consideration should be given to how religious and faith communities should be included in preparedness efforts, the Government is of the view that dialogue with religious and faith communities on preparedness should be further developed.

5.4.3 Norwegian National Security Authority

The Norwegian National Security Authority (NSM) is Norway’s agency for preventive security. The agency’s mission is to strengthen Norway’s capability to counter espionage, sabotage, terrorism and hybrid threats NSM fulfils Norway’s commitments in the area of preventive security in the NATO Security Committee.

NSM plays a key role in strengthening preventive security work in the defence sector and in the civilian parts of the total defence. It has a national expert and supervisory responsibility across the military and civil sectors. This is a major advantage that enables comprehensive security work. NSM is tasked with overall and cross-sectoral responsibility for preventive security work, and helping to ensure that authorities and organisations have greater capabilities in security management and to meet their responsibilities under the Security Act.

In times of crisis, armed conflict and war, NSM will continue to fulfil its main tasks across the military and civil sectors. In a build-up to a crisis, there will be an increasing need for information about the assets and vulnerabilities that must be protected against activities that pose a threat to security and could affect national security interests. NSM is tasked with contributing to situational awareness and assisting in the management of serious security threats.

NSM has a defined role in the Norwegian Armed Forces’ and NATO’s operational planning, and supports the defence sector within its own field of expertise across the crisis spectrum. Priority will be given to deliveries that are crucial to the Norwegian Armed Forces’ capability to conduct operations in Norway together with allies. The need for the agency’s deliveries will increase at the upper end of the crisis spectrum. NSM is subject to the Norwegian Armed Forces’ directive on build-up of forces and, on the orders of the Chief of Defence, must prepare its organisation in accordance with the Chief of Defence’s approved list of forces and given preparation time.

Through the National Cyber Security Centre, NSM has the national response function for serious cyber attacks. The National Cyber Security Centre is the point of contact for handling cyber security incidents across the entire crisis spectrum, both nationally and in relation to allies, and assists organisations in handling major cyber security incidents. The National Cyber Security Centre is also an arena for national and international collaboration for detection, management, analysis and advisory services related to cyber security. The Centre includes partners from business and industry, academia, the defence sector and the public sector who actively contribute to mutual cooperation for a more resilient digital Norway.

NSM works closely with the Norwegian crypto industry to develop high-grade crypto technologies. According to Norwegian Crypto Policy, national control of high-grade communication is important for Norwegian sovereignty and national security, and forms part of Norwegian defence and security policy. National control means that the development of crypto algorithms and the production and implementation of crypto material are carried out in collaboration between NSM and the Norwegian crypto industry on behalf of the Ministry of Defence.

NSM is the national distribution authority responsible for the control and distribution of crypto material. The agency also fulfils the role of National Distributing Authority Norway for crypto in relation to NATO. NSM is a supplier of crypto-security services to the Norwegian Foreign Service, the Norwegian Police Security Service and the Norwegian Armed Forces, as well as in connection with necessary communication between organisations with total defence tasks and the Norwegian Armed Forces for emergency preparedness purposes. At the high end of the crisis spectrum, there will be an increased need for the NSM’s services both nationally and in the alliance.

5.4.4 Civil Security Clearance Authority

The Civil Security Clearance Authority’s core task is to grant security clearance to personnel for access to classified information, and critical national objects and infrastructure in the civil sector. This is a fundamental element of the Government’s security work and an important tool for reducing insider risk. It is also a prerequisite for the production, communication and protection of important national security information.

The personnel clearance function is a necessary prerequisite for Norway’s capability to manage crises and war. In a normal situation, the clearance function will lay the foundation for emergency preparedness by enabling crisis management organisations to handle and communicate information securely at the higher levels of the crisis spectrum.

In a crisis or war, the provision of clearances can come under significant pressure. Firstly, the need to exchange classified information will increase in these situations. Secondly, the need to maintain and restore basic national functions will be pivotal to our ability to manage crises and war situations. Thirdly, functions that the Clearance Authority itself is dependent on may be reduced or deprioritised.

In a crisis or war situation, the Civil Security Clearance Authority will in principle have the same role and responsibility as under normal circumstances. It will closely collaborate with organisations on prioritising clearance needs for personnel who have key roles in various crisis scenarios, and also collaborate closely with the Armed Forces. As discussed in Section 7.3, the Government has decided to initiate work to modernise the Civil Security Clearance Authority to make it fit for the future.

5.4.5 Norwegian Directorate for Civil Protection

The Directorate for Civil Protection’s role in peacetime and times of crisis is also maintained in wartime.

In security policy crises and wars, the Directorate’s cross-sectoral coordination role will be key to achieving an updated picture of the situation, a knowledge base and status assessments related to critical societal functions across sectors of society. The Directorate will also help provide cross-sectoral analyses of future courses of events and consequences. The purpose is to ensure that measures decided at central level are implemented quickly and understood at the local level through the county governor’s coordination function. As described in Section 4.2.4, the Government will therefore give the Directorate for Civil Protection clearer powers in its coordination role.

The Directorate for Civil Protection will maintain a close dialogue with the Norwegian Armed Forces on the implementation of measures in the military preparedness system, and maintain an overview of measures implemented in the Civil Preparedness System. This is important for coordination between the civil and military sectors. The Directorate will also contribute proposals for the implementation of measures in the Civil Preparedness System, and ensure that the county governors and civil defence districts implement these measures.

As a civil preparedness authority, the Directorate for Civil Protection will also be responsible for ensuring that risks, hazards and recommendations are communicated effectively from the authorities to the public, for example through the Civil Defence’s use of the Nødvarsel alert system.

Photo: Directorate for Civil Protection.

Wars entail a shortage of resources. The Directorate for Civil Protection has a role in coordinating and quality assuring the Norwegian Armed Force’s support to civilians, and must, if necessary, assist local and regional authorities and other public agencies in requesting assistance from the Armed Forces. In the event of a security policy crisis or war, the Directorate will work closely with the Armed Forces and the police to ensure the best possible utilisation of resources in the total defence. The Directorate has a central coordination responsibility for host nation support, see Section 3.10.1.

The Directorate for Civil Protection is the national contact point for the EU, UN and NATO’s civil preparedness programmes for mutual assistance. It is also the national contact point for the EU’s Emergency Response Coordination Centre (ERCC).

The Directorate will also maintain its function as a professional, administrative and supervisory body in times of security policy crisis and war, but will need to prioritise maintaining the most critical functions. The Directorate is responsible for fire and electrical safety and regulates the municipal fire services, which, being at the high end of the crisis spectrum, means they will need national management and prioritisation of resources.

It is also the responsible authority in areas relating to hazardous substances, explosives, transport of dangerous goods, electrical safety and product safety. Organisations subject to the Directorate’s authority may pose a greater risk to society in a security policy situation, while also possessing significant inputs in emergency preparedness. This also includes organisations subject to industrial safety regulations with capacities and resources of great importance to emergency preparedness and civil protection. The Government will also ask the Directorate for Civil Protection to clarify the role of the industrial safety system and Major Accident Enterprises in the total defence work (see Section 3.9.2).

5.4.6 The Norwegian Civil Defence

The main task of the Norwegian Civil Defence is to protect the population in times of crisis and war.

Both the Total Preparedness Commission and the Civil Defence itself are of the view that the current number of conscripts is insufficient to fulfil the tasks of the Civil Defence in war. It is also demanding to maintain sufficient preparedness in peacetime as a reinforcement resource. There is a concern that the Civil Defence could be further weakened in the event of a major crisis as a result of personnel being granted exemption from service for the sake of their ordinary work.

With its decentralised organisation, the Norwegian Civil Defence is a very useful resource throughout the country. With its stocks of critical materiel, which are advanced throughout the country, they have a short response time for a wide range of tasks. The Government believes that this decentralised organisation, both the district structure and the advance storage of equipment and materiel, must remain in place. Work on strong, local and decentralised management must be secured and bolstered. In connection with building up the Civil Defence forces, it is natural to look at expertise and capacities as part of a necessary build-up of forces.

The Government wishes to increase the number of conscripts in the Civil Defence from 8,000 to 12,000 over an eight-year period. The need to further develop the Civil Defence’s capabilities and capacities will be investigated at the same time.

5.4.7 The police and Norwegian Police Security Service

Norwegian society faces challenges from more unpredictable terrorist threats, where security policy developments affect the terrorist threat and entail a more complicated crime situation in the country. The challenges are further characterised by more complex organised crime and an increasing level of cybercrime, increasing youth crime with serious acts of violence in public spaces, the expansion of transnational criminal networks, and state actors who also use non-state actors as means by which to achieve their goals. Organised crime can affect the population’s sense of security and challenge legal social structures. These trends place increased demands on both the police and the Norwegian Police Security Service (PST) in terms of prevention, deterrence and criminal prosecution. It also places increased demands on identifying and handling hybrid activities (see also Chapter 7) and preparing decision-making support for the strategic level. The police’s collection of information for their own intelligence is also important for PST’s assessments of foreign states’ use of hybrid activities in Norway. The police deal with all aspects of an incident until it becomes clear that the responsibility lies with PST and the case is transferred.

The police and PST have different roles as police organisations. While the work of the police is aimed at the safety and security of citizens and society, the work of PST concerns the security of the realm. At the same time as the police and PST fulfil their ordinary duties, they must also be prepared to deal with incidents higher on the crisis spectrum and war.

The police

The police have a wide range of tasks and are a key actor in incident and crisis management, in times of peace, crisis and war, at local, regional and national level, see Box 5.4. The police also have cross-sectoral responsibility for crisis management in situations where people’s lives and health are threatened. Until responsibility is assumed by another authority, the police must organise and coordinate the relief work, cf. the Police Act Section 27.

In principle, the police will have the same roles and responsibilities in wartime as in peacetime. This is established in the Police Act. Only the police and PST (as discussed in more detail below) are able to use civilian force to counter the use of hybrid activities.

A worsening of our current challenges will increase the number of police assignments. At the same time, less assistance from the Norwegian Armed Forces, which will prioritise its military tasks, must be expected high up in the crisis spectrum, during war and the threat of war. Parallel events may also challenge access to resources and expertise. To handle an increasing number of tasks, the police must either be provided with additional resources (personnel, equipment, expertise, technology), reprioritise resources, or both. High on the crisis spectrum, the Norwegian Prosecuting Authority must also prepare for any reprioritisation of criminal cases. A key part of this work is to plan in advance which measures must be implemented to reduce the consequences of cases being downgraded. Investigating violations of human rights and the international law of war are examples of tasks that fall to the police and the Prosecuting Authority. Justice in the aftermath of armed conflict and war helps to restore social order and create a basis for reconciliation. From a total preparedness perspective, it is therefore important that the police fulfil their criminal prosecution function, also at the highest level of the crisis spectrum.

The Norwegian Police Security Service

The Norwegian Police Security Service (PST) is responsible for preventing, countering and averting threats to national security in accordance with Section 17b of the Police Act. PST is also Norway’s domestic intelligence service and is tasked with preventing and investigating serious crimes against the nation’s security. In that context, it will also identify, assess and handle threats related to foreign states’ use of hybrid activities in Norway, including influence operations. This includes preventing, countering and investigating foreign states’ intelligence operations, sabotage and influence operations in Norway. This responsibility applies in both the physical and digital domains. PST is also responsible for giving notification of threats to national security in accordance with Section 17a of the Police Act. This includes responsibility for providing decision-making support on matters in Norway that may threaten its sovereignty, territorial integrity, democratic form of government and other national security interests.

PST, like the police, will have the same roles and responsibilities in war as they do in peace. This is established in the Police Act and in the Instructions for the Norwegian Police Security Service.

A deterioration in the security situation will increase the volume of assignments under all of PST’s main duties, including an increase in tasks related to state actors’ threat activities in Norway. Increased social unrest will also challenge PST’s counter-terrorism work. Furthermore, we must expect a greater need to protect the country’s government officials. Such an increase in PST’s scope of duties entails a need for additional resources (personnel, equipment, expertise, technology), reprioritisation of resources, or both.

The role of the police and PST high on the crisis spectrum

In addition to the threat situation, stronger ambitions in the defence sector and in NATO are increasing expectations of both the police and PST to support military activity levels. This applies both in connection with exercise activities and in connection with situations high on the crisis spectrum that may arise. The police and PST are not combatants according to the international law of war, nor are they lawful targets, and will thus have civilian status in a war. This means that police employees have the same protection against acts of war as the civilian population. However, according to Section 6 of the Emergency Preparedness Act, the King may decide that ‘… all police, individual police forces or the police in certain districts shall be incorporated into the military forces’.7 This applies to theatres of war. If the police are incorporated into the military forces, the police personnel become combatants, with the consequences this entails under international law.

Incorporating the police into the military forces will give rise to a number of unresolved elements. Neither the police nor PST are currently equipped or trained to be incorporated into military forces. Nor do they have the resources necessary to be able to fulfil their ordinary social mission in parallel with being incorporated into military forces. It is important that organisations continue to prepare to be able to deal with incidents high on the crisis spectrum to provide a more robust basis for doing so.

A wide range of factors will affect the roles and tasks of the police and PST during armed conflict and war. It is therefore essential to review and assess the legal, resource-related and emergency preparedness issues that may arise during such situations. Legal assessments include international rules such as the international law of war. Reference is made in this respect to the National Police Directorate’s national guidelines on the role of the police in armed conflict and under occupation from 2024.

The Government will swiftly initiate work to look more closely at the portfolio the police and PST should maintain in the upper part of the crisis spectrum, what can or should be assigned to other actors and what must be left out. This will help to clarify what can and should be expected of the police’s and PST’s combined capacities and scope of duties in situations high on the crisis spectrum. It will also help to identify the necessary measures to ensure that society has the necessary police services and domestic intelligence and security services at all times. The Prosecuting Authority’s social mission stands firm, regardless of whether the country is in peace, crisis or armed conflict. However, assessments of which crime should be given the highest priority will change during a crisis.

This work must be seen in the context of ongoing efforts to ensure more long-term and comprehensive management and development of the police and PST, as well as the Government’s efforts to improve cross-sectoral long-term efforts to strengthen civil resilience (see Section 3.2) and work on a common basis for civil preparedness planning (see Section 10.1).

The Government will also set up a public committee to assess the role of the police. The police role committee will provide important input on issues relating to the role of the police and the duties it should fulfil in light of needs and expected developments in society. The police role committee’s assessments will be seen in the context of efforts to facilitate more long-term and comprehensive governance of the police.

It is crucial that we have a regulatory framework that safeguards our national ability to detect and counteract activity by foreign states in Norway that presents a threat to security in peacetime and in heightened security policy situations. The Ministry of Justice and Public Security is collaborating with relevant actors to ensure that we have regulations to this end.

Further develop efforts to combat radicalisation, violent extremism and terrorism

Extremist forces promote polarisation and seek to undermine trust in democracy and democratic institutions. Terrorism, which is the most extreme expression of extremism, can in the worst case destabilise entire societies. State actors can also exploit tendencies towards polarisation to destabilise society.

Relevant measures must be implemented to address challenges related to radicalisation, violent extremism and terrorism. These range from early preventive efforts to managing situations at the high end of the crisis spectrum. Counterterrorism efforts must continue to be prioritised. It has made a substantial impact to reducing the threat of terrorism in Europe. Counter-terrorism work requires comprehensive efforts, close follow-up and an up-to-date knowledge base that is communicated to actors at national, regional and local levels to achieve a shared understanding of the situation and the best possible preparedness.

The first national counter-terrorism strategy was presented in 2021. It describes roles and responsibilities and forms the basis for a joint effort across all relevant sectors with the aim to preventing radicalisation and terrorism. The revised strategy was presented in November 2022 and includes relevant points from the Hurdal Platform, such as the establishment of the Extremism Commission, as well as measures based on lessons learnt from past incidents. Measures targeting cases that may be at the intersection of violent extremism and psychiatry are among the most important priorities in the revised strategy. These include improving the exchange of information between the police, PST and the health and care services, within the framework of confidentiality and privacy rules.

The national Action Plan against Radicalisation and Violent Extremism was launched in 2014 and has been revised several times, most recently in 2020.8 A report on the status of the measures shows that 29 of 30 measures have been initiated or completed. However, it also identifies challenges in sustaining measures over time, in addition to questions about the division of roles and responsibilities.

These challenges are also highlighted in the Extremism Commission’s Norwegian Official Report (NOU) 2024: 3 Joint efforts against extremism: Better conditions for preventive work. In line with the Hurdal Platform, the Extremism Commission was appointed by the Government on 10 June 2022, and the report was presented on 1 March 2024. The Commission’s task was to generate and analyse knowledge that sheds light on various factors that have given rise to the emergence of radicalisation and extremism in Norway in recent times, and to make recommendations on how this can be more expediently prevented going forward. The Commission makes 41 recommendations in four main areas: (1) Better organisation and more binding cooperation, (2) Knowledge-building and competence enhancement in preventing and countering violent extremism, (3) Better protection and participation opportunities for vulnerable groups and (4) Strengthened support for democracy and human rights. The Government will present a white paper on extremism in the spring of 2025 to follow up on the Extremism Commission’s report.

5.4.8 The fire and rescue services

The Government will prepare a national risk and vulnerability analysis that will form the basis for ensuring more tangible national support resources for the fire and rescue services throughout the country. This is in line with the recommendations of the Total Preparedness Commission, which highlight challenges relating to major incidents that require special expertise and equipment, such as CBRNE incidents, fire and rescue missions in tunnels and search and rescue missions in collapsed buildings.

According to the Fire and Explosion Protection Act, the fire and rescue services must perform specific preventive and emergency preparedness tasks in times of crisis and war, and these tasks may be regulated in more detail in regulations. Such regulations have not been established. The Government will safeguard the role of the fire and rescue services in Norway’s total defence by clarifying their role in crisis and war, cf. Report No 16 to the Storting (2023–2024) Brann- og redningsvesenet Nærhet, lokalkunnskap og rask respons i hele landet (Fire and rescue services – Proximity, local knowledge and rapid response throughout the country – in Norwegian only), cf. Recommendation No 413 to the Storting (2023–2024). A national risk and vulnerability analysis will contribute to this effort by reviewing the tasks of the fire and rescue service that may be associated with protecting the civilian population in crisis and war.

A national risk and vulnerability analysis will also involve assessing whether the Directorate for Civil Protection should be given a clearer role and responsibility as the national fire authority in the event of major or simultaneous incidents involving a substantial need for coordination.

5.4.9 The health and care service

Norway has one health and care service, and it must be operational across the entire crisis spectrum. In the event of war, it must provide health and care services to the public at the same time as supporting national and allied military forces. Civil-military health preparedness cooperation is discussed in Report No 5 to the Storting (2023–2024) – A Resilient Health Emergency Preparedness, cf. Recommendation No 220 the Storting (2023–2024) and Proposition No 87 to the Storting (2023–2024), The Norwegian Defence Pledge – Long-term Defence Plan 2025–2036, cf. Recommendation No 426 to the Storting (2023–2024). To follow this up, the health sector will work closely with the Armed Forces on preparedness planning for handling mass casualties, including medical evacuation, treatment and follow-up, use of personnel and expertise, medical logistics, blood and blood products, host nation support etc. National preparations must coincide with NATO, Nordic and EU plans for the civil-military evacuation and medical treatment chain.

Norway participates in international cooperation on resilient health systems, monitoring, notification, analysis and measures to prevent, detect and manage incidents. Norway also cooperates closely with the EU on health preparedness and has a Nordic health preparedness agreement.

5.4.10 Norwegian Customs

Norwegian Customs’ social mission is to ensure compliance with laws and regulations for the cross-border movement of goods, thereby contributing to a safe and sustainable society. As part of this mission, the agency enforces regulations on behalf of 19 other central government authorities.

Norwegian Customs is used to handling changes in import and export restrictions at short notice, and assessing whether it is necessary to implement extraordinary measures to enforce them (e.g. extensive changes to restrictions in the areas of infection control, food safety, product safety, weapons import etc.) Norwegian Customs has formalised border customs cooperation with the EU (through agreements with Sweden and Finland), which gives the agency considerable insight into the various aspects of cross-border traffic and a role in safeguarding Norway’s obligations in border cooperation with our neighbouring countries, also in the event of crises.

Norwegian Customs is defined as an agency with two critical societal functions, see Box 3.1. One function is ‘law and order’, where Norwegian Customs exercises border control, and the second is ‘security of supply’, which encompasses the supply of critical goods to the public and organisations with responsibility for critical societal functions. Norwegian Customs has a role in many different emergency situations, but primarily situations related to two scenarios. These include scenarios requiring more intensive control of goods, such as animal and plant diseases and inputs for terrorist threats, and scenarios where the police intensify border checks of individuals, and Norwegian Customs can assist the police in these checks.

6 Civil protection measures and other bases for resilience

Civil protection measures are designed to help protect the population in connection with incidents high on the crisis spectrum. Public procurement that emphasises security and preparedness can also help build resilience in society and contribute to a well-functioning local business sector. Similarly, research and knowledge development will help create a society that has the resources and expertise to prevent and handle undesirable incidents, including those high on the crisis spectrum. Culture and free speech are also of great importance to civil resilience.

The Government will:

• revoke the decision from 1998 to temporarily halt construction of emergency shelters in new buildings.

• establish four categories of shelters; 1) Protection where you are, 2) Locations in safer geographical areas, 3) Improvised emergency shelters (dekningsrom) and 4) Emergency shelters (tilfluktsrom).

• maintain siren warning systems for public alerts high on the crisis spectrum, and consider increasing the coverage of siren systems in relevant areas.

• ensure that public self-preparedness advice is clear and that it reflects the threat situation.

• investigate the possibility of implementing security and preparedness requirements in public procurement in order to safeguard preparedness and national security interests.

• contribute to clear and thorough guidelines on security and emergency preparedness in public procurement, including identifying the categories of procurement in which it is particularly important to set security and preparedness requirements.

• facilitate more research and education in public security and total defence.

• propose a comprehensive research system for open, critical national and classified research.

6.1 Protection of civilians in war

If Norway becomes a party to an armed conflict on Norwegian soil, the authorities have a special responsibility under international law to protect the civilian population. Our current civil protection measures are 1) timely public alerts with a high level of coverage, 2) appropriate evacuation to safe areas and 3) self-preparedness.

A number of actors have roles and responsibilities related to civil protection measures. The Directorate for Civil Protection and the Norwegian Civil Defence have primary responsibility for the development of a comprehensive civil protection concept, but a number of other actors also have roles and responsibilities related to measures involved in such a concept (see Figure 6.1).

In recent years, the Directorate for Civil Protection has further developed the civil protection concept. The Government has tasked the Directorate with adapting the concept to the present threat and risk situation, international experience and the current organisation of civil preparedness. The work is organised in line with the Total Preparedness Commission’s recommendation to develop a comprehensive protection concept. It includes all measures aimed at protecting and safeguarding civilian needs in times of war, and must be incorporated into other total defence efforts, including through plans and exercises.

The general public’s self-preparedness and ability to protect themselves will be at the heart of the civil protection concept (see Figure 6.1). As part of this effort, the Directorate for Civil Protection will also consider changing the three main pillars by adding measures to better protect the population in times of war. Measures set out in the Geneva Conventions are divided into three main pillars that can also form a framework for the Norwegian civil protection concept: a) preventive measures to protect the population against dangers from acts of war, b) measures to help the population overcome the immediate effects of acts of war and c) measures to ensure the survival of the population, including the population’s access to food, water and heat. The organisation of the concept and measures will depend at all times on factors such as the threat situation, weapons technology and demographics.

The international law of war sets the framework for the use of military force in war. The civil protection concept must take into account that different parts of the country may be affected differently by acts of war. It must also take into consideration that parts of the civilian population may be particularly vulnerable to war crimes and have special needs (see Box 6.1).

6.1.1 Timely public alerts with high coverage

In a crisis situation, the authorities must be able to quickly notify the public of an immediate danger and provide precise information about what is happening and what the population should do to protect themselves and their loved ones. The Government therefore ensured that Nødvarsel, a mobile-based emergency public alert system, was in place from the turn of the year 2022/2023. The emergency alert system is used in connection with local, regional and national incidents, and is an important supplement to existing siren alerts. The police and Norwegian Civil Defence are responsible for deciding which areas should be alerted and for sending out the alert. The system has been tested nationwide four times. The Directorate for Civil Protection estimates that more than 90% of the population can receive the alerts.

The Norwegian Civil Defence’s siren system consists of more than 1,200 operational alert systems. These reach about half the population, mainly those living in cities and densely populated areas where sirens were deployed during the Cold War. Society has seen manifold changes since most of the systems were deployed, both in terms of settlement patterns and which areas will be most vulnerable to armed attack.

Siren systems are still a crucial tool for alerting the public in situations high on the crisis spectrum. As such, the systems will be maintained as a future warning system, the level of coverage will not be reduced and the Civil Defence will assess whether they can increase the coverage over time in relevant areas.

The Norwegian Broadcasting Corporation (NRK) is responsible for broadcasting the authorities’ emergency preparedness messages and important information on the radio. NRK P1 is the emergency radio channel that provides information to the public, even if other news media and public websites are not available.

6.1.2 Evacuation and shelters

The term ‘safe areas’ can create an unrealistic expectation of absolute safety in these locations. In a war, the state will never be able to guarantee absolute safety and security. The Government therefore wishes to replace ‘safe area’ with the term ‘shelter’. Shelters are categories of areas and spaces designed to help protect civilians in times of war or the threat of war. The Government also wishes to divide shelters into four subcategories, see Box 6.2.

Shelters are a necessary protective measure in war. Emergency shelters constitute the civil protection measure that provides the highest level of protection for civilians against harm caused by acts of war (see Box 6.3). In 1998, changes in the security policy situation after the Cold War, among other things, led the Storting to agree to a temporary halt in the construction of new shelters until a new protection concept was in place. As a result of the decision, everyone is exempt from building shelters in new buildings upon application, and no shelters have been built since 1998. This, combined with population growth and the removal of some shelters due to building demolition, means that the level of coverage is gradually decreasing. The Government finds it inappropriate in the current security policy situation to maintain the decision from 1998, which in practice entails a controlled discontinuation over time of the measure that represents the highest wartime protection for civilians. Other nearby countries are also stepping up this type of measure.

The Government will therefore revoke the 1998 interim decision to temporarily halt the construction of emergency shelters. Exemption from the building obligation will not be automatically granted. The Government is of the opinion that emergency shelters will continue to be a crucial protective measure. This is a necessary protective measure during incidents at the high end of the crisis spectrum. Looking at recent history, Report No 5 to the Storting 5 (2020–2021) Samfunnssikkerhet i en usikker verden (Civil protection in an unsafe world – in Norwegian only), cf. Recommendation No 275 to the Storting (2020–2021), states the following about emergency shelters: ‘The emergency shelter scheme in its current form will be discontinued when a new scheme for safe areas for the population across the entire crisis spectrum has been established.’ This was stopped by the Storting and was not based on an adequately long-term approach. The Government therefore proposes that the emergency shelter scheme be continued and reinforced in order to protect the civilian population during crisis and war.

Photo: Sporveien AS.

The Government will soon submit for consultation a proposal for adjustments to the regulations with new criteria for requirements for the construction of permanent shelters to protect the public from harm in the event of war. The proposal will include shelters with two different levels of protection, the current emergency shelters and a new category of improvised emergency shelters with a lower level of protection. The Government is of the opinion that it would be appropriate to set such requirements for both public and private projects. This must be seen in light of the need for increased preparedness against different types of scenarios. In anticipation of the Storting’s decision, the Directorate for Civil Protection will not discontinue the current practice of granting exemptions from building emergency shelters in new buildings until new regulations and criteria are in place.

Photo: Rogaland civil defence district.

It is important to see shelters in the context of other civil protection measures, particularly evacuation and wartime relocation. Wartime relocation is the evacuation of people from areas that are or may be exposed to acts of war to a safer area. Such relocation can involve moving people over large geographical distances to an area where they may have to stay for an extended period of time. The Government’s plans for evacuation and wartime relocation of the civilian population in armed conflict will be assessed and possibly revised on the basis of the chosen civil defence concept and adapted regulations. The Directorate for Civil Protection has begun work to revise the wartime relocation plan, and is in the process of assessing which areas should have such plans given our current challenges.

Emergency shelters and improvised emergency shelters are mainly built to protect people who have not moved to a safer geographical area during war or where there is a threat of war. Individuals in need of these types of shelter will, for example, be people who are important for maintaining fundamental national functions and critical societal functions, including supporting tasks in a war-prone area.

In Resolution No. 743 of 11 March 2021, the Storting adopted the following: ‘The Storting asks the Government to return to the Storting with an assessment of how existing emergency shelters can be utilised to a greater extent so that they are maintained and form part of national police preparedness in connection with, for example, migration, pandemics or supply crises.’ The request has been assessed, and shows that it is inappropriate to use existing private emergency shelters for other preparedness purposes, in part due to preparation time and the fact that the shelters are the property of the building owner. Furthermore, restricting the areas for preparedness purposes will infringe on the owner’s right of disposal over their own property. Some public emergency shelters have multi-purpose functionality. Such functionality will also be relevant to consider in the event of future establishment of public emergency shelters or improvised emergency shelters.

6.1.3 New and tailored public self-preparedness advice

The Directorate for Civil Protection has conducted digital self-preparedness campaigns every year since 2018. The main purpose is to remind the public that they must ensure their own basic needs in the event of a serious crisis, either on their own or through cooperation with, for example, family and neighbours. The Directorate recommends having a week’s worth of self-preparedness supplies and suggests a number of things you should have at home, see Box 6.4. Good self-preparedness will reduce the need for help from emergency resources, so that these can be deployed where they are most needed.

On behalf of the Government, the Directorate for Civil Protection has adapted the self-preparedness advice to new and more serious times. The advice now also applies to preparedness for crisis and war, and also includes what individuals can do to identify misinformation and disinformation. The Government is also strengthening efforts to prevent influence operations, see Section 7.4.

The Government has concluded that the Directorate for Civil Protection will continue to determine self-preparedness advice. The Government recognises that there are a number of professional considerations that must be taken into account when preparing advice, and the fact that a sector agency issues the advice prevents unnecessary politicisation. In the Government’s view, there is good and increasing public awareness of the advice issued by the Directorate for Civil Protection.

Photo: Daniel Fatnes/Directorate for Civil Protection.

6.2 Safeguard preparedness and security considerations in public procurement to a greater extent

Every year, the public sector in Norway procures goods, services and construction work for around NOK 780 billion. What the public sector buys and demands in public procurement is therefore of great importance. The Government appointed the Procurement Committee in 2022 (see Box 6.6).

The Government is of the opinion that the Procurement Committee’s recommendations are based on thorough assessments. The Government will investigate the possibility of implementing security and preparedness requirements in public procurement in order to safeguard preparedness and national security interests. An assessment will be made of whether it is necessary to amend the procurement regulations in order to clarify in legal terms the possibility of setting requirements for security and emergency preparedness in public procurements. The Government will also contribute to clear and thorough guidelines on security and emergency preparedness in public procurement, including identifying the categories of procurement in which it is particularly important to set security and preparedness requirements. Clear guidance will be important to ensure that contracting authorities utilise the full scope of the regulations and that appropriate requirements are set in procurements.

The Procurement Committee has, for instance, emphasised that it is possible to set requirements related to preparedness that require a local presence, and that supply preparedness can justify splitting up procurements. Many local contractors and organisations made active contributions to the handling of the extreme weather ‘Hans’ and in subsequent clean-up efforts. Often, local resources are crucial to managing serious undesirable incidents. It is therefore important that public procurement, within the framework of the regulations, also helps ensure that these resources are available locally and thereby contribute to good basic preparedness throughout the country. Civilian support is crucial for the Norwegian Armed Forces and allies to be able to defend the country in security policy crises and wars. In a war, the Armed Forces will have a significantly greater need for goods and services than in a normal situation, and will be dependent on civilian resources to meet its needs. It is an advantage if these increased needs can be met locally where the Armed Forces are in operation. This capacity must be built in peacetime.

As part of the follow-up of the new long-term plan for the defence sector, the Norwegian Armed Forces will exploit the full scope of laws and regulations in order to make greater use of local and regional suppliers. Local and regional suppliers mainly refer to organisations that contribute to emergency preparedness and security through well-functioning local communities and local and regional business development. One of the measures to strengthen the national defence industry is to require industrial cooperation in connection with major procurements from abroad. The agreements oblige the supplier to carry out projects/activities with Norwegian organisations in areas that are important for national security and preparedness. The Government will continue to use industrial cooperation agreements as a security policy instrument to help maintain a robust national industrial base that can deliver according to the needs of the Norwegian Armed Forces. We do this to ensure a diverse business sector throughout the country.

The Government will also review the procurement regulations for the defence sector. The Ministry of Defence has initiated work on a new Defence and Security Procurement Act. An external working group has been appointed to assess how a new act on defence and security procurement should coincide with the Security Act’s provisions on classified procurements and take account of special circumstances in the defence and security sector. The working group will also assess whether adjustments should be made to the new act to ensure that procurements can be carried out quickly.

The war in Ukraine has shown that Norway needs a robust national industrial sector that is capable of rapidly increasing production and has the capacity to supply the Norwegian and allied defence sector. Russia’s war of aggression against Ukraine has led to a significant and rapid increase in defence sector needs, but the market has not been able to meet demand for several types of deliveries. At times, Government involvement is necessary to ensure that sufficient production capacity is available when needed. Involvement can take the form of ownership in the supply chains, or establishing industry nationally or in collaboration with close allies.

6.3 Research and education in the total defence system

The knowledge sector plays a crucial role in efforts to strengthen civilian resilience and total defence. Research and knowledge development has been a priority area for some time, both nationally and through European cooperation (see Box 6.7). Continued investment is necessary both for broader public security efforts and to meet the need for specialist expertise. There is increasing competition for relevant expertise.

It is important to find a good balance between open research and Norway’s need for classified research and researchers who require security clearance. This must be seen in the context of efforts to ensure good researcher recruitment and Norway’s competitiveness in research on public security and emergency preparedness.

In the long-term plan for research and higher education 2023–2032 (Report No 5 to the Storting (2022–2023), cf. Recommendation No 170 to the Storting (2022–2023)), the Government states that it will strengthen the work on public security and emergency preparedness through research, innovation and education. Important knowledge needs include global health threats, food safety, drinking water and supply risks, security of power supply, severe natural events, nuclear safety and nuclear preparedness, security and defence policy, responsible international knowledge cooperation, technology and public security and knowledge in crises.

Developing expertise in public security and emergency preparedness requires that various actors find the resources and time to establish and embark on competence-building programmes. At present, the Norwegian Defence University College and the Directorate for Civil Protection are the main organisations offering emergency preparedness courses, as well as cooperation with, among others, the Norwegian Police University College in connection with national preparedness and crisis management. There are similar courses at the Nordic level. An important part of the work on knowledge development is ensuring that the content of such courses is up to date, based on new and systematic knowledge, and that the best possible conditions are created for universities and university colleges to collaborate with user groups. The development of experience-based master’s degrees in recent years is a good example of collaboration between the higher education sector and user environments such as the Armed Forces, the police, the Norwegian Civil Defence and other key actors in the total defence system.

6.3.1 Work on research and education in public security, emergency preparedness and total defence

To realise a new direction for total preparedness in society, we must consider more powerful policy instruments targeting competence development. Over time, the Research Council of Norway has focussed on enabling and industrial technologies, including cyber security. Various public security study programmes have been established in the higher education sector in several parts of the country. There are also a number of vocational education programmes. It is important to continue these efforts and to further develop environments and disciplines.

The Government will facilitate research and education in public security and total defence, in accordance with the long-term plan for the defence sector and the long-term plan for research and higher education.9 Consideration is being given to:

• strengthening research funding for public security and emergency preparedness through the Research Council of Norway, with an emphasis on interdisciplinary issues as well as cyber security and technology.

• providing further incentives to strengthen the participation of private and public sector actors in projects in areas of relevance to security and emergency preparedness work, threat and risk understanding and securing society’s assets, in collaboration with research and education communities.

• establishing continuing education programmes in public security and total defence targeting employees in relevant public and private organisations.

6.3.2 A comprehensive research system for open, critical national and classified research

The Government will facilitate better coordination of the R&D systems in the civil and military sectors. In the long-term plan for the defence sector, the Government states that Norway’s overall need for open, critical national and classified knowledge will be met through the development of a common national research system. It may become necessary to protect knowledge and technology to a greater extent going forward. It should therefore be possible for more research environments to carry out critical national and classified research. A comprehensive research system will give defence and emergency preparedness actors better access to cutting-edge research. Several research institutes and organisations want to contribute R&D related to defence, security and emergency preparedness, but currently lack access to mechanisms and guidance that make this possible in practice and sufficiently secure. There is a need for better utilisation of resources and greater facilitation to enable needs and solutions to coincide.

To conduct critical national and classified research, the research institutes and organisations must have in place and maintain an acceptable level of security in line with the requirements of the Security Act and pertaining regulations. The Government will continue to develop the research system and provide the necessary mechanisms and guidance resources that are currently lacking, so that more organisations can qualify to conduct critical national and classified research. The Government will return to how this can be operationalised in the forthcoming white paper on the research system.

Openness, academic freedom and research ethics are fundamental principles that the Government seeks to safeguard. All research institutes and organisations that work on sensitive subject areas must be given a secure framework. It must be entirely clear where restrictions are necessary for security reasons. Voluntariness is an essential principle when allowing more people to carry out critical national and classified research. Organisations that conduct research and individual researchers should and must be free to choose whether they wish to take part in this type of research activity.

6.4 The importance of culture, cultural heritage and media for civil resilience

The Government finds it important to maintain strong and independent media and art and cultural institutions that are able to safeguard our cultural heritage and maintain cultural activities during crises and war. According to the Norwegian Constitution, the state has a duty to facilitate ‘… open and enlightened public discourse’. This entails a responsibility to ensure that there are well-functioning channels for the exchange of information and opinions in society. Free media and an active cultural scene form part of this aim.

6.4.1 Cultural protection and cultural heritage

Culture, cultural heritage and cultural organisations are important, also in times of crisis and war. Cultural heritage is a target and instrument, and fosters resilience. This is emphasised in UN Security Council Resolution 2347 from 2017, which states that cultural heritage, as an expression and representative of a society’s identity, is deliberately used as a target and instrument of terror, war and conflict.

Archaeological heritage sites, historic buildings and memorials are actively used as targets to destabilise society. When cultural heritage is attacked, it weakens a society’s identity and threatens its sense of belonging and security. Norway is a party to and committed to following up the UNESCO Convention for the Protection of Cultural Property in the Event of Armed Conflict (1954) and the Second Protocol (1999), hereafter referred to as the Hague Convention, see Box 6.9. Cultural heritage is often used as a means of financing warfare and terrorism. Cultural artefacts are looted and sold, making them part of global environmental crime.

Cultural heritage is actively used in disinformation, fake news and conspiracy theories, and is also an instrument. Russia’s use of historical revisionism, as part of the annexation of the Crimean Peninsula and full-scale war in Ukraine, is used purposefully and effectively to deliberately promote a narrative intended to undermine the history and identity of Ukrainians.

In recent years, the Government has strengthened cross-sectoral preparedness cooperation to secure and protect cultural heritage. This effort will remain paramount going forward. It is essential that cultural heritage is safeguarded as part of the emergency preparedness system. The Directorate for Cultural Heritage is the national coordinator for the implementation of the Hague Convention.

6.4.2 Access to culture and activities

Access to independent media, artistic and cultural expression, sports and leisure activities can provide meaning in difficult times and a sense of belonging, identity and hope. The EU report ‘Culture and Democracy – The Evidence’10 demonstrates a clear and positive correlation between the proportion of citizens participating in cultural activities and civic engagement, democracy and social cohesion. The report shows that participation in cultural activities contributes to, among other things, an increased likelihood of voting in elections, volunteering and developing positive social attitudes related to democratic values and identities.

Voluntary activities, libraries, archives, cultural institutions and the independent arts and cultural scene in all artistic fields are components of the population’s opportunity and ability to be enlightened and apply critically thinking, to find meaning and insight in life, and to be open and search for solutions and opportunities.

Well-informed citizens, with good access to knowledge about and a firm grasp of their own cultural identity, will have greater opportunities to make good choices for themselves and their local community in a time of crisis. This can be decisive for how the nation as a whole withstands a crisis. A cultural sector that functions as normally as possible in times of crisis will be an important aspect of the nation’s overall preparedness and the public’s ability to persevere, and maintain good mental health and morale. This could be decisive for how the nation as a whole weathers a crisis.

The Government expects institutions that receive public funding to prepare plans to safeguard our culture and disseminate culture, art and cultural heritage, even during crises, as far as this is prudent.

The Government facilitates infrastructure for the production and dissemination of art and culture through institutions and public funding schemes. The Government will continue to ensure this as far as possible in crises and war. In such a situation, the Government will seek to maintain arenas and meeting places for culture, sports and voluntary activities to the degree possible.

6.4.3 The role of the media in crisis and war

Independent, editorial media is fundamental to democracy. Editorial media contributes to informed and engaged citizens who take part in society around them. Through their ‘watchdog function’, the media ensures that the authorities are held accountable for their decisions. This is essential for building trust in institutions and authorities.

Ensuring good framework conditions for editorial media is essential. The public’s ability to distinguish between the truth and falsehoods is challenged at several levels. Artificial intelligence has become both more advanced and more accessible. The global internet platforms amplify the spread of emotional and engaging content, increasing the risk of algorithmic amplification of disinformation. Regulation of these platforms is therefore another important preventive measure, including through the EU Digital Services Act.

It is crucial that the functions of the media are also safeguarded in times of crisis and war. The public has a particularly great need for information in a crisis situation, and information from editorial media is an important addition to information provided by the public authorities. This is both because the media potentially reaches more or different sections of the public than the authorities, but also because the media’s independent assessments and investigations build trust.

Norway has regulations and public grant schemes in place that enable editorial media channels to fulfil their social mission, without censorship and manipulation. The Government will take steps to ensure that the media is able to fulfil this social mission even during crises and war.