The European Commission adopted this Wednesday recommendations to strengthen the resilience of the European Union in the face of natural disasters and large-scale emergencies, such as forest fires, floods and earthquakes, calling for a reinforcement of the European civil protection mechanism.
The communal executive, in cooperation with the 27 capitals, identified “five objectives to collectively pursue” to ensure greater resilience to disasters: the first is to improve risk assessment, anticipation and disaster risk management planning, the second is to raise awareness and prepare the population for risks, the third is to reinforce early warning, the fourth is to strengthen the response capacity of the EU civil protection mechanism and, finally, to guarantee a strong civil protection system .
Regarding the reinforcement of the response capacity of the European civil protection mechanism, Brussels stresses that it is essential so that “the EU can provide more help to fill critical gaps and prevent a further deterioration of the situation when a country’s capacity is overloaded ”. .
The Commission stresses that “requests for assistance are increasingly frequent and response needs are increasingly diverse”, so the mechanism “must be prepared to respond to emerging risks and a probable increase in border-crossing disasters from several countries”.
“Therefore, the Union Mechanism must be strengthened with the right type and amount of resources to continue to effectively support Member States in responding to disasters that overwhelm their national capacities. Regularly reviewed ”, argues the community executive.
Regarding the specific objectives, described in the recommendation adopted today by the college of commissioners, and with regard in particular to the response to forest fires, one of the main natural disasters that regularly affect Portugal, the European Commission defends that the European civil protection mechanism “must be able to respond to the needs of at least six Member States simultaneously with aerial capacities to fight forest fires, once national capacities have been exhausted, for a minimum of one day and a maximum of seven ”.
“In parallel, the mechanism should be able to respond simultaneously to the needs in four Member States with depleted national response capacities in terms of ground capacities to fight forest fires, for a minimum of seven days and a maximum of 14.”
The recommendation also includes a strengthening of early warning and monitoring systems, and the community executive pointed out that these “are essential to anticipate and prepare for disasters”, helping public authorities and people threatened by disasters to “act in a timely manner to minimize injury. , loss of life and damage to property, the environment and cultural heritage”.
“Early warning systems need to be regularly evaluated and improved at Union level and in the Member States. The key functions of early warning systems, such as anticipation, detection, monitoring of hazards and their impact, and early warning, and making them easily understood by the population, including vulnerable groups, must be strengthened.” argues Brussels, adding that the European Center for the Coordination of Emergency Response should proactively support Member States and help civil protection authorities with “rapid and on-demand impact assessments for detected or anticipated events”.
“Member States must improve their public alert systems to allow better communication of risks, emergencies and crises, expected impacts and measures to be taken”, recommends Brussels, noting that “coordination between the authorities and services involved must be encouraged” and “Information flows and responsibilities must be clearly established.”
The objectives defined this Wednesday in the recommendation addressed by the Commission to the Member States “are a non-binding common reference base to support prevention and preparedness actions in the event of catastrophes that affect two or more countries at the same time”, he explains. Brussels.
Source: TSF
