📋 Tender Overview
Baden-Württemberg is well prepared for the UEFA Euro 2024 and ready for kick-off. In order to safely manage the individual match days, over 3,000 additional emergency personnel and several hundred additional emergency vehicles from the entire emergency services family will be deployed.
"In football, you can only win if you work well together. The same applies to internal security. And so the 2024 European Football Championship (EURO 2024) is a gigantic and at the same time beautiful challenge for us as the state of Baden-Württemberg. We have many teams from the police , fire brigade and other aid organizations in action, who work extremely well together. In order to manage the individual match days safely, we are planning with over 3,000 additional emergency personnel and several hundred additional emergency vehicles from the entire emergency services family. Because it is important to consider the global political situation in our planning: the Middle East conflict and the Ukraine war are also felt here and are a security policy challenge. We are looking forward to a fan and family festival at which people from different countries in Europe will meet here in Baden-Württemberg. We are expecting many thousands of guests from all over the world to come to us on and between the individual match days. And we warmly welcome the individual teams, some of whom live here and some of whom are only traveling for the match days. It is our task as the state of Baden-Württemberg to ensure a safe process for all these people," said Interior Minister Thomas Strobl at the press conference to mark the start of the Union of European Football Associations (UEFA) Euro 2024 on May 28, 2024.
Five tournament games in Stuttgart
From June 14 to July 14, 2024, the European Football Championship will take place in Germany with national teams from 24 countries. Stuttgart will be the host venue for five of the 51 tournament games. The national teams of Switzerland, Spain, Belgium and Denmark will have their permanent team base camps in Baden-Württemberg. In addition, the security forces must take into account the teams' many travel movements.
Stuttgart's mayor Dr. Frank Nopper said: "Despite all our enthusiasm for football, the safety of our guests and visitors is our highest priority: safety around the five European Championship games in the Arena Stuttgart, safety at public viewing on Schlossplatz and in all other fan zones, safety at all program items on non-match days. Stuttgart city center and the Stuttgart Arena will therefore be secured to an unprecedented extent. The state capital of Stuttgart is investing 10.5 million euros in structural security measures alone."
Thousands of guests travel to Baden-Württemberg for the games
Many thousands of guests will travel to Baden-Württemberg for the individual matches. Some of the matches are to be viewed as critical. The matches between Germany and Hungary and Scotland and Hungary have been classified by the police as high-risk matches. The security authorities in Baden-Württemberg are therefore in close contact with the states and the federal government, in particular with the International Police Cooperation Center (IPCC) in Neuss in North Rhine-Westphalia, which serves as a hub for national and international information exchange. The Baden-Württemberg police are represented there with 16 officers in various functions.
"The Stuttgart Federal Police Directorate has been preparing extensively for the European Football Championship for a long time. We are intensifying operational measures on all transport routes to ensure the safety of football fans and travellers. This involves identifying travel routes at an early stage and stopping potential football troublemakers on their way there. In the greater Stuttgart area, the Federal Police will increase their presence to maximum strength, particularly at the Stuttgart Central Station and Bad Cannstatt Station," said the President of the Stuttgart Federal Police Directorate, Carsten Laube.
The global political situation has also changed significantly since the last major football tournament in Germany in 2006. The Middle East conflict and Russia's war of aggression against Ukraine in particular are taken into account in the assessment of the security situation and the measures based on it. According to the current assessment, the security authorities assume that the threat situation is high in abstract terms, but there are still no concrete indications of a threat. The threat scenarios have also evolved since 2006. For example, the police now have to prepare for cyber attacks or an attack with drones.
Public safety is the highest priority
The plans for this major event are largely complete. They are now being continuously adjusted based on the current security situation. Public safety is of course the highest priority, which is why the emergency and rescue forces of the various organizations must be optimally coordinated with one another. Several exercises and large-scale exercises have already taken place for this purpose (including from Wednesday, April 24 to Friday, April 26, 2024 and from Tuesday, May 14 to Thursday, May 16, 2024). A total of more than 1,200 emergency personnel from the state police, the federal police and the civil rescue service practiced on the six large-scale exercise days. 2,400 extras were deployed to create a realistic scenario.
"Our preparation team has been planning many different scenarios for over a year and a half and we are on the home stretch as planned. My colleagues are excitedly looking forward to this unique event and this special effort for us too. We are fully committed and extremely professional to ensuring safety so that we can all experience a peaceful fan and family celebration," said Police Chief Eisenbraun at the press conference.
