The European Affairs Ministers of the EU Member States, meeting in Brussels in the ‘General Affairs’ Council, expressed their condolences on Tuesday 21 February to the Turkish and Syrian people who had been victims of new earthquakes the day before in the Turkish province of Hatay (southern Turkey), on the Syrian border. They also reaffirmed their commitment to continue their coordinated assistance to victims in the affected areas of both countries, including through the EU Civil Protection Mechanism (see EUROPE 13124/10).
At the end of the session, Swedish Minister Jessika Roswall told the press that she had “informed the ministers under ‘other business’ of the activities underway” to increase and coordinate aid.
The EU institutions, together with representatives of Turkey and UNHCR, took stock of the situation on the ground on Monday in the framework of the Integrated Political Crisis Response (IPCR) group, the Swedish Presidency said on Monday.
This group will continue to follow the situation closely until the donors’ conference co-organised by the Swedish Presidency and the Commission on 16 March in Brussels, in coordination with the Turkish authorities (see EUROPE 13125/31).
EU Neighbourhood Commissioner Olivér Várhelyi and Swedish Minister for International Development Cooperation and Trade Johan Forssell will travel to Turkey on Wednesday to prepare for the event, which aims to “coordinate the donors’ response [and] raise additional funds for relief and early reconstruction in the areas affected”, a Commission spokeswoman said at midday.
“The humanitarian disaster continues. We have been helping since the beginning”, stressed Germany’s Minister of State for European Affairs and Climate Change, Anna Lührmann, while Ministers Annalena Baerbock (Foreign Affairs) and Nancy Faeser (Interior) were on Tuesday “on the ground to see how to adapt this aid and improve it further”.
Better disaster preparedness in the EU too. Commission Vice-President for Foresight Maroš Šefčovič stressed that at the EU summit on 23-24 March, leaders will discuss the situation in devastated Turkey and Syria, and stressed the importance of the EU better preparing itself for major disasters.
“The focus is on the donors’ conference to mobilise additional support and assistance, but on the other hand we also need to pay attention to our own preparedness”, he said.
This, he said, was “the reason why” under ‘other business’, he presented to the ministers the Commission’s recommendation to the Member States on EU resilience targets to better prepare, nationally and collectively, for major disasters with transboundary impacts (see EUROPE 13117/5).
He also cited plans to double the EU’s aerial fire fighting fleet “to be able to respond to the growing risk of wild fires” (see EUROPE 13119/4, 13030/11). (Original version in French by Aminata Niang)