Postal Security, Anthrax and beyond Europe's Posts and the Critical Network Challenge: Lessons from the Anthrax Case to Meet Future Challenges

Abstract

La Poste's chairman, Mr Vial, was in New York when he heard the news: According to AFP, two persons had been infected with anthrax in Germany, Europe's first confirmed cases in the mail-bourn terrorist scare of autumn 2001. He immediately tried to get in touch with his counterpart at Deutsche Post, to no avail. He was also unable to get a hold of the head of Royal Mail. Unfortunately, the news came on November 2, part of a long weekend holiday in much of Europe. Mr Vial had to settle for a conference call with a few of the staff members at La Poste who were working that day. Tension remained high until 8:30 p.m. that evening, when AFP finally announced that its earlier report had proved false. For an industry such as the postal sector, being able to work together in times of crisis is crucial. Each day millions of letters and parcels are shipped across borders in Europe. As worries of contamination spread from the U.S. to Asia, Europe, and around the globe, it became clear to everyone, and not just those in the postal industry, just how interconnected the global postal network truly is. PostEurop members and officers, of course, have long been aware of the interconnectedness of the operators. This interconnectedness can bring benefits, as when we are able to suggest to our members common solutions to common problems. But the anthrax crisis has also shown the flip side of the coin. As fears of contamination spread beyond the U.S., posts acted individually in drawing up their contingency planning. But, although some informal contacts had been established among crisis managers, no co-ordinated effort had been made to deal with the crisis at the European level. The first lesson was self-evident: The post industry was prepared for specific, local or national crises. It was not for international interconnected crises. A lack of co-ordination and effective communications planning was revealed. Clearly, a new area of risks and potential crises had emerged. As a result both the structure and culture of systems safety and crisis preparedness had to be revisited. PostEurop has considerable experience in getting its members to tackle tough issues that can affect them all. This case was just another difficult challenge to meet. But when such a challenging issue emerges the process has to contain a mix of numerous ingredients. A number of coordinated and well designed initiatives created a key drive to the process. The determination of several public postal operators to put the issue on the agenda and to work hard on a benchmarking project gave the initial impulse. The intellectual input to clarify the challenge as well as general support coming from public postal operators throughout the continent and a strong innovative coordination capacity at European level was put in place. And, last but not least, the direct cooperation of USPS, directly confronted to the most severe front of this crisis, as well as other organisations such as the Universal Postal Union and CERP. The most important factor contributing to success and of benefit to any complex international network confronted to such emerging threats with a potentially debilitating industrywide impact, is sharing experiences on that very rich process launched in response to the crisis. This is the guiding principle of this paper, which focuses on the crucial issue, the global process of being prepared for crises, and not only the specific (national) results of crises on an individual basis.