EU’s emergency response system needs overhaul, says CoR chief

The president of the committee of the regions Michel Delebarre has called for “needless time-consuming procedures” for accessing EU emergency funds to be removed.

Delebarre writing in the latest issue of the Parliament Magazine warns that“Civil protection can be a matter of life or death, where delays can prove fatal.” 

 “When confronted this summer with 12 requests for activation, the EU failed to provide an adequate response.”

Delebarre's comments come as flood warnings were issued for several European countries and hundreds of people were evacuated from the UK’s south-east coast on Friday.

The EU is due to hold a high-level forum on civil protection at the end of November to discuss more effective ways to prevent, prepare for and respond to natural disasters.

In September the EU conducted a review of the council’s 2001 civil protection mechanism, an instrument involving 30 European countries to pool resources and equipment to enable a coordinated respond to natural disasters.

The review proposes the creation of civil protection ‘modules’, groupings of national resources designed to be quickly mobilised in the face of an emergency. The modules are to include specialised water pumping, forest-fire fighting and urban search and rescue groupings.

“It’s high time the EU equipped itself with the means to do proper battle with such events so that they do not turn into major disasters,” said Maria Candelas Sánchez Miguel, president of European economic and social committee (EESC)’s agricultural section.

Delebarre says the CoR is in favour of more funds for civil protection, and takes a ‘holistic approach’ to the system. Any coordinated civil protection mechanism should include, he says, preventive measures (risk analysis), planning and implementation measures (mobilisation of resources) and recovery and follow-up measures.

Delebarre's comments are echoed by Gerardo Galeote, chair of the parliament’s committee for regional development warns that “It is crucial that measures designed to combat the effects of these disasters are coordinated at European level.”

In 2004, former regional affairs commissioner Michel Barnier proposed the creation of an EU ‘rapid reaction’ force, and parliament in October approved a €1.5m increase in the regional development budget for 2008, earmarked in part for the creation of just such a group.

Galeote proposes a reform of the EU’s solidarity fund to speed up and improve the access to support for victims and their families.

“Last year, natural disasters affected 254 million people worldwide. In the EU natural disasters have caused the deaths of more than 65,000 people since the 1980s,” he said.

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