Increasing the EU’s prevention, preparedness and response capacity for the 2023 forest fire season and beyond was at the heart of talks between the EU Commissioner for Crisis Management, Janez Lenarčič, and the Portuguese authorities on Tuesday 10 January in Lisbon.
On the same day, a workshop of experts from the member countries of the Union’s Civil Protection Mechanism (UCPM) was held in Lisbon, organised by the Commission to draw lessons from the particularly devastating 2022 fire season.
“Last summer, 800,000 hectares of forest and farmland burned. We must be prepared for even greater, more intense weather related disasters, like forest fire due to climate change. The cardinal lesson is that we all have to do more, at national level and also at European level”, said Mr Lenarčič in a press briefing broadcast by the Commission from Lisbon.
Disaster resilience targets coming soon. The Commissioner announced the imminent finalisation of work on disaster resilience targets for the EU and its Member States, which should be ready “within days”. The presentation of a Commission recommendation on this subject, initially scheduled for December, has been postponed to January.
The action plan to strengthen the EU’s prevention and collective response capacity, meanwhile, “should be ready in a few weeks”, Mr Lenarčič also announced.
He recalled that this action plan is based in particular on the doubling of the capacity of the RescEU reserve of aerial fire-fighting resources, decided last September, the acceleration of the setting up of the RescEU permanent reserve, the pre-positioning of more fire-fighting teams (see EUROPE 13030/11).
Portugal is one of the countries that has applied to pre-position such teams on its territory. The Minister of Internal Administration, José Luís Carneiro, said he had “reiterated the Portuguese candidacy”.
Prevention is an investment. The action plan and resilience targets will require resources, the Commissioner stressed, adding that: “We must understand that the resources we allocate for wildfire prevention, preparedness and response capacity is not an expenditure, it is an investment”.
According to a World Bank study carried out in cooperation with the European Commission, “€1 invested in prevention saves €10”, while the damage from the last forest fire season in Europe was “€2 billion, according to preliminary estimates”.
While Portugal has been hard hit this summer, suffering more than 10% of the damage caused by fires in Europe, this Member State, which has received assistance, is also “one of the most active” in the civil protection mechanism, which serves both EU and third countries. Mr Lenarčič thanked the country for its solidarity. (Original version in French by Aminata Niang)