In response to the commitment made late Thursday evening by European leaders to “ramp up” the repatriation efforts of an ever-increasing number of European citizens who want to return from third countries, the European Commission proposed on Friday 27 March to increase the financial means of the EU Civil Protection Mechanism.
For 2020, an additional 75 million euros has thus been proposed both for support for the repatriation of European citizens (45 million euros) and for the provision of medical equipment to deal with the COVID-19 pandemic (30 million euros) under the RescEU reserve (see EUROPE 12456/2).
The initial budget announced by the Commission for the medical equipment reserve created last week was 50 million euros, which therefore becomes 80 million euros.
“Repatriations are continuing. So far, the Civil Protection Mechanism has co-financed 75% of the flights to repatriate 2,302 EU citizens”, said Crisis Management Commissioner Janez Lenarčič. This includes 16 flights since the beginning of the epidemic in China.
But the EU Civil Protection Mechanism was not designed for a crisis of this magnitude - which is why priority is given to commercial flights organised by Member States, with consular coordination at EU level. More than 80 flights are still planned in the coming days.
“Repatriation is an absolute necessity. We have more than 400,000 European citizens that want to come back home”, High Representative of the Union for Foreign Affairs Josep Borrell stressed on Thursday, pointing out the enormous difficulties caused by the closure of air space in many countries. (Original version in French by Aminata Niang)