Integrated political crisis response (IPCR)

The key objectives of the integrated political crisis response (IPCR) arrangements are to support comprehensive situational awareness and cohesive decision-making at the EU political level in response to major, cross-sectoral crises – whether originating within or outside the EU, and whether they are natural or man-made. Through the IPCR, the Presidency of the Council of the European Union coordinates the political response to the crisis by bringing together the affected Member States, EU institutions and other key participants.

In 2013 the IPCR arrangements replaced the emergency and crisis coordination arrangements adopted by the Council in 2006, which functioned at the time as a platform for exchanging information and coordinating action between EU Member States. Council Implementing Decision (EU) 2018/1993 codifies the IPCR arrangements into a legal act and sets out how the IPCR arrangements are to be implemented. The IPCR is designed to be flexible and scalable, drawing upon existing resources, structures and capabilities.

The work of IPCR is supported by a number of IPCR tools:

informal roundtables aimed at informing political decision-making, with relevant participants as decided by the Presidency;
integrated situational awareness and analysis (ISAA) reports to inform discussions in IPCR roundtables and provide decision-makers with a clear common picture of the situation, prepared by the European Commission and the European External Action Service;
a dedicated IPCR web platform to act as an electronic hub between relevant stakeholders to exchange and gather information, and restricted to those stakeholders;
a central 24/7 contact point within the Commission’s Emergency Response Coordination Centre, to liaise with key participants.

The IPCR is scalable. It has two activation modes – information-sharing mode and full activation mode – and a monitoring mode designed to support the monitoring of an emerging or abating crisis:

full activation mode supports overall strategic coordination by identifying key gaps or bottlenecks and by preparing possible options for response;
information-sharing mode establishes a clear picture of the situation through the publication of the ISAA and prepares the ground for a possible full activation;
monitoring mode enables the sharing of information and existing reports.

The Presidency decides which one to use at any given moment, depending on the gravity of the crisis and the need to steer the response at the political level, and can escalate or de-escalate the activation mode accordingly.

The decision to activate or deactivate the IPCR is the prerogative of the Presidency, except in the case of the invocation of the solidarity clause (Article 222 of the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union) where the IPCR will be activated automatically in full mode. The decision to activate IPCR in information-sharing mode can also be taken by the General-Secretariat of the Council, the Commission and the EEAS, in consultation with the Presidency. Both the information-sharing and the full activation modes trigger the production of ISAA reports. Roundtables are held when the IPCR is activated in full mode, but can be held under information-sharing mode if deemed necessary, on an ad hoc basis.

The IPCR is currently activated in full mode for the situation in the Middle East, for Russia’s war of aggression against Ukraine, and for migration matters. As of 2 May 2023, the IPCR activations for COVID-19 and for the earthquakes in Türkiye and Syria have been deactivated and switched to monitoring mode.