“Notably, when there are conflict zones, when there is no government in place, etc., the UN and UN agency can also activate the mechanism. But mind you, we are not responsible. We cannot push the countries to activate. It is their responsibility to activate. We are in constant, constant contact with the countries but it is their responsibility. So we cannot assume ours. We cannot push. We cannot impose the activation if we expect, if we see with our instruments that should that might be a catastrophe which is looming. It is expected. Then we can predict that can be the mechanism can be pre activated. So so meaning that the capacities are sort of standby ready to be deployed. Also since 2022 we have created a system of pre pre-positioning of forest fire fighters in some places. Some countries which are prone to forest fire particularly so, there are teams of forest fire fighters that are there pre-positioned for two months or one month or two months or few or few weeks. They are there because we expect that there will be forest fires one day or the other. So this is important to underline, and this is a very successful system that we have created. Last reply on the legislation. Yes. You say it's a it's a new legislation. It is true. The mechanism was created in 2021, but it has been revised the various times it was revised. The very important revision which I mentioned was in 2019 with the creation of rescue and also, for instance, of the Knowledge Network. Very important. And now we are working on the proposal to be submitted in the context of the package for the MFF. So basically there has been a revision over time. Thank you.”
Conditions to access EU humanitarian aid
“Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. Good afternoon everybody. Honourable members, it is a pleasure for me to be here to showcase the activities of the European Civil Protection Mechanism and its role when it comes to preparedness against major emergencies. As you may know, on the 1st of April of this year at the EU plenary. My Commissioner, Mrs. Labib, presented a preparedness strategy which was adopted by the Commission a few days earlier on the 26th of March. This is a major initiative, but at the same time, it is an initiative that builds on something that already exists. So the Union Civil Protection Mechanism. I'm here. I would try also to be a little bit pedagogical to explain what the European Civil Protection Mechanism is. First of all, I would like to recall that the Commission has only in this area a supporting competence, meaning that the responsibility remains within the member States and the participating states. For those that are not familiar with civil protection, I would say that the union mechanism is not only the 27 EU member states. But there are also ten other participating states which are fully part of the mechanism. These are mostly from the Western Balkans like Serbia, Montenegro, North Macedonia. Uh, we have, uh uh, we have Albania, and then we have others that come from other parts of Europe, like Turkey. We have Iceland. We have Norway. The two last, uh, uh, countries that have joined the mechanisms are Moldova and then Ukraine. So this happened last year. Very important to recall this because they are fully part of the of the mechanism.”
EU humanitarian missions · EU vs national competence for civil protection and climate adaptation