To better fight this summer's forest fires, the European Union is financing the Swedish government's purchase of two fire-fighting aircraft that will add to the equipment reserve of the EU's Civil Protection Mechanism RescEU, the European Commission announced on Friday 5 June.
As a result, the EU fleet available to assist Member States who would have insufficient national capacity to deal with such fires will total 13 aircraft this year. Croatia, Cyprus, Greece, Italy, Spain and Sweden each...