On Friday, 24 February, at the end of a two-day regional dialogue organised as part of the ‘European Forum for Disaster Risk Reduction’ (EFDRR) in Bucharest, the United Nations, the European Commission, and Romanian authorities stressed that reliable and accurate communication with the general public about disaster risk is essential to saving lives, protecting livelihoods, and building resilient societies.
The purpose of the event—which brought together delegates and young people from 34 countries as well as organisations like the Union for the Mediterranean and the Council of Europe—was to exchange views on the subject of ‘Understanding and communicating existing and future risks: ensuring evidence-based communication’.
This topic is one of the priorities identified so as to make progress in the Sendai Framework for Disaster Risk Reduction 2015–2030, a roadmap that is in line with the UN’s 2030 Agenda. This roadmap is based on the 2019 Global Platform and the guiding principles for the 2022 Global Platform (see EUROPE 12962/19).
The Sendai Framework advocates the substantial reduction of disaster risk and of losses in terms of human lives, livelihoods, and health as well as the economic, physical, social, cultural, and environmental assets of individuals, businesses, communities, and countries.
European Commissioner for Crisis Management Janez Lenarčič took the opportunity to present Romanian Secretary of State for the Interior Raed Arafat with the recent Commission Communication ‘Acting together to deal with future emergencies’, which is accompanied by a recommendation to Member States regarding the EU’s resilience goals for 2030 that were set by the institution. Besides national and collective prevention and preparedness for major disasters with transboundary effects, this recommendation envisages raising public awareness of the risks as a first key action (see EUROPE 13117/5).
The commissioner also met with Romanian President Klaus Iohannis and Prime Minister Nicolae Ciucă ahead of the 23–24 March European Council, which is expected to examine the EU’s preparedness for future disasters, as European Commission Vice-President for Foresight Maroš Šefčovič pointed out when presenting his institution’s initiative to European Affairs ministers on the sidelines of the discussion on the devastating earthquakes in Turkey and Syria (see EUROPE 13126/14).
Janez Lenarčič had previously visited Spain with the same goal in order to prepare this dossier with the future Spanish Presidency of the Council of the EU, which wants to make strengthening civil protection capacities a priority (see EUROPE 13117/5). (Original version in French by Aminata Niang)