The National Operative Staff (NOST) () is a collaboration at the highest level between authorities in

Denmark Denmark is a Nordic countries, Nordic country in Northern Europe. It is the metropole and most populous constituent of the Kingdom of Denmark,, . also known as the Danish Realm, a constitutionally unitary state that includes the Autonomous a ...

, the

Faroe Islands The Faroe Islands ( ) (alt. the Faroes) are an archipelago in the North Atlantic Ocean and an autonomous territory of the Danish Realm, Kingdom of Denmark. Located between Iceland, Norway, and the United Kingdom, the islands have a populat ...

and

Greenland Greenland is an autonomous territory in the Danish Realm, Kingdom of Denmark. It is by far the largest geographically of three constituent parts of the kingdom; the other two are metropolitan Denmark and the Faroe Islands. Citizens of Greenlan ...

. The staff's main task is to create an overview so that the government and other authorities have a sufficient basis for making decisions. The National Operative Staff is obliged to hold at least one alert exercise every six months. The

Danish National Police The Police of Denmark (, , ) is the Danish National Police force, and the interior part of the Danish security forces (the Danish military being the exterior) in the Kingdom ( The Danish Realm: Denmark (proper), Greenland, Faroe Islands). T ...

coordinates the work. NOST is activated, for example, by: * major

accidents An accident is an unintended, normally unwanted event that was not deliberately caused by humans. The term ''accident'' implies that the event may have been caused by unrecognized or unaddressed risks. Many researchers, insurers and attorneys w ...

disaster A disaster is an event that causes serious harm to people, buildings, economies, or the environment, and the affected community cannot handle it alone. '' Natural disasters'' like avalanches, floods, earthquakes, and wildfires are caused by na ...

s *

terrorist attack Terrorism, in its broadest sense, is the use of violence against non-combatants to achieve political or ideological aims. The term is used in this regard primarily to refer to intentional violence during peacetime or in the context of war a ...

s *

cyber attack A cyberattack (or cyber attack) occurs when there is an unauthorized action against computer infrastructure that compromises the confidentiality, integrity, or availability of its content. The rising dependence on increasingly complex and inte ...

s *

state visit A state visit is a formal visit by the head of state, head of a sovereign state, sovereign country (or Governor-general, representative of the head of a sovereign country) to another sovereign country, at the invitation of the head of state (or ...

s *

summits A summit is a point on a surface that is higher in elevation than all points immediately adjacent to it. The topographic terms acme, apex, peak (mountain peak), and zenith are synonymous. The term (mountain top) is generally used only for ...

NOST was established in 2005 by the government in connection with the tsunami in Thailand as part of the defense agreement 2005-09.

Members

The permanent members of NOST are: *

Danish Security and Intelligence Service The Danish Security and Intelligence Service (DSIS; (PET)) is the national security and intelligence agency of Denmark. The agency focuses solely on national security while foreign intelligence operations are handled by the Danish Defense Intel ...

* Danish Defence Command * Danish Defence Intelligence Service * Centre for Cyber Security *

Danish Emergency Management Agency The Danish Emergency Management Agency (DEMA) () is a Danish governmental agency under the Ministry of Societal Resilience and Contingency. Its principal task is to manage an operational part who work out of six Emergency Management Centres, an ...

Danish Health Authority The Danish Health Authority () is a state-owned entity in Denmark sorting under the Ministry of Health. It was founded in 1909 and is situated in Copenhagen in the area of Islands Brygge. Its areas of responsibility range widely, including estab ...

* Danish Civil Aviation and Railway Authority * Danish Critical Supply Agency *

Ministry of Foreign Affairs In many countries, the ministry of foreign affairs (abbreviated as MFA or MOFA) is the highest government department exclusively or primarily responsible for the state's foreign policy and relations, diplomacy, bilateral, and multilateral r ...

Other authorities are called in as needed. For example, the

Danish Meteorological Institute The Danish Meteorological Institute (DMI; ) is the official Danish meteorological institute, administrated by the Ministry of Climate, Energy and Utilities. It makes weather forecasts and observations for Denmark, Greenland, and the Faroe Is ...

is called in during storms.

Activities

For example, NOST has been activated at the: *

2009 United Nations Climate Change Conference The 2009 United Nations Climate Change Conference, commonly known as the Copenhagen Summit, was held at the Bella Center in Copenhagen, Denmark, between 7 and 18 December. The conference included the 15th session of the Conference of the Partie ...

Air travel disruption after the 2010 Eyjafjallajökull eruption In response to concerns that volcanic ash ejected during the 2010 eruptions of Eyjafjallajökull in Iceland would damage aircraft engines, the controlled airspace of many European countries was closed to instrument flight rules traffic, resulti ...

2015 Copenhagen shootings On 14–15 February 2015, three shootings occurred in Copenhagen, Denmark. In total, two victims and the perpetrator were killed, while five police officers were wounded. The first shooting took place on 14 February at a small public afternoon even ...

* Tsunami in Greenland 2017 * Drought in the summer of 2018 * Great Belt Bridge rail accident in 2019 *

COVID-19 pandemic The COVID-19 pandemic (also known as the coronavirus pandemic and COVID pandemic), caused by severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2), began with an disease outbreak, outbreak of COVID-19 in Wuhan, China, in December ...

in 2019 to 2022 * Landslide at Nordic Waste in 2021 to 2024 *

Nord Stream pipelines sabotage On 26 September 2022, a series of underwater explosions and consequent gas leaks occurred on 3 of 4 Nord Stream pipes, rendering them inoperable. The Nord Stream 1 (NS1) and Nord Stream 2 (NS2) are natural gas pipelines. They are two of 23 g ...

in 2022 *

Storm surge A storm surge, storm flood, tidal surge, or storm tide is a coastal flood or tsunami-like phenomenon of rising water commonly associated with low-pressure weather systems, such as cyclones. It is measured as the rise in water level above the ...

in 2023 * Breakdown of TDC Net's mobile network in 2024.

References

{{Reflist Government of Denmark Emergency services in Denmark