Visiting Slovakia, the EU Commissioner for Crisis Management, Janez Lenarčič, visited, on Wednesday 23 March, the logistics hub in Kosice, which is now operational to speed up the delivery of the unprecedented assistance provided to Ukraine through the EU Civil Protection Mechanism - “more than 8,000 tonnes” of emergency items and equipment donated so far by 29 countries participating in the mechanism, the Commissioner recalled.
“It is the third hub that we have set up after the hub in Poland and in Romania and we need this hub to manage the big flow of assistance that is going from EU daily to Ukraine”, he stressed (see EUROPE 12911/7).
Lenarčič recalled that Slovakia is “one of the most active countries in the EU Civil Protection Mechanism”: while the country itself has recently requested assistance in receiving refugees, in the last five years it has responded to 32 requests for assistance from other countries that have requested the Civil Protection Mechanism, compared to the 3 requests it has made in the same period.
The Commissioner also visited the ‘hotspot’ for Ukrainian refugees in Michalovce and a temporary emergency refugee camp. He thanked Prime Minister Edouard Heger, the Interior Minister, Roman Mikulec, “Slovakia, the Slovak government and the Slovak people in general for the solidarity they have expressed” (Original version in French by Aminata Niang)