A European Union disaster exercise organised in Brussels in October caused considerable confusion in Helsinki, and could potentially have had embarrassing consequences.On the afternoon of October 30th, Foreign Minister Erkki Tuomioja received an SMS message in the middle of a press conference according to which terror attacks had targeted five large cities in the EU, and that a 9/11 type attack using aircraft had taken place against London. The text message came from the EU's Joint Situation Centre or SitCen. Finland's status as the holder of the EU Presidency meant that the same message also went to dozens of Finnish civil servants.
The message reportedly stated that terror attacks had been launched against the business district of Frankfurt, and against Vienna, and that a plane en route to Finland had been hijacked.
