Brussels, 05/03/2008 (Agence Europe) - On 5 March, the European Commission presented its recommendations for improving the EU's response, to disasters, natural or man-made, at home and abroad.
Major disasters, such as the tsunami in the Indian Ocean in December 2004, the 2006 war in Lebanon, forest fires and floods in Europe in the summer of 2007 and the increasingly frequent disasters caused by climate change have shown the need for the EU to have a rapid and effective response capacity. This was recently highlighted by the European Parliament and the Council.
Faced with the complexity and extent of the multidimensional challenge, the EU has to adopt an approach which combines prevention and disaster relief, bringing together all policies, instruments and services at the Community's and member states' disposal to work as one team. The Commission has begun the assessment of its own role in the EU response to emergencies, crises and disasters. A task force has been set up to help it provide the most effective response. The communication on “Reinforcing the Union's Disaster Response Capacity”, adopted by the College of Commissioners on 5 March, is the fruit of a joint initiative by President José Manuel Barroso and Environment and Civil Protection Commissioner Stavros Dimas. It does not prejudge new possibilities opened up by the Lisbon Treaty.
Progress has been made: this includes - the revised legislative framework which saw the Council grant the Commission greater responsibility in civil protection (based on the Barnier report of May 2006 recommending setting up a European, Civil Protection Force); - European consensus on humanitarian aid of December 2007 setting out, for the first time, common objectives and principles; - the reorganisation of 130 Commission delegations in third countries, each now with its crisis manager, and with six specialising in disaster response; - the action plan on consular protection adopted by the Commission in 2007; - efforts by the Commission to better coordinate action with member states, the UN and other international players.
In concrete terms, for a more coordinated EU response, the Commission suggests:
Greater coherence, effectiveness and visibility of European action. The Commission is committed to improving coordination of training, needs assessment, planning and operations. In the event of a major natural disaster, it recommends greater rationalisation of coordination between itself, the Presidency, member states and the high representative for the common foreign and defence policy, both in Brussels and on the ground. To this end, it suggests real-time exchange of factual information and the setting up of joint planning and operational teams.
Reinforcing the Community Civil Protection Mechanism. The Monitoring and Information Centre (MIC), housed in DG Environment to coordinate national resources, should be built up into an operational centre for European civil protection intervention which can predict emergency situations or provide follow up in real time. This change includes setting up an early warning system, performing needs assessments, identifying matching resources, developing scenarios; implementing the Commission competences to pool available transport; increasing training and exercise activities for experts; and using monitoring capabilities such as those developed under GMES (Global Monitoring for Environment and Security) or enabling tools like Galileo.
The Commission also proposes reinforcing the MIC through developing reserve resources, i.e. standby modules and European resources which complement those of member states.
Reinforcing European humanitarian aid. The Commission proposes identifying existing gaps in the delivery of European and international humanitarian aid through a mapping study on logistical capacity. Thereafter gaps will be filled by increasing world response capacities, particularly those of the UN and the Red Cross movement, and by improving coordination with the various humanitarian players.
Capacity building across Community policies and instruments. The Commission proposes the creation of a European disaster response training network, which would build on the experience gained by member states in training and improving disaster preparedness measures for disasters in the EU and in third countries, early warning systems (e.g. for tsunamis in the Mediterranean) and using the European single emergency number, “112”. (A.N.)