Conference “CIDOB Breakfast with Christos Stylianides, European Commissioner for Humanitarian Aid and Crisis Management: A Europe that protects: Strengthening EU civil protection in natural disasters”
When? 11 February 2019
Where? CIDOB, Barcelona
Alone in 2017, over 200 people were killed by natural disasters in Europe and over one million hectares of forest have been destroyed. “The tragedies of the past few years have shown that our current disaster response system has reached its limits in its existing voluntary format. The challenges we face have evolved, and so must we. It is a matter of solidarity and shared responsibility at all levels” said Christos Stylianides during the presentation of rescEU,a new European system to tackle natural disasters.
This proposal is a central part of President Juncker’s agenda of a Europe that protects and comes in light of more complex and frequent natural disasters that have seriously affected many European countries over recent years. A key part of the proposal is the creation of a reserve at European level of civil protection capabilities such as aerial forest fighting planes, special water pumps, urban search and rescue and field hospitals and emergency medical teams. These will complement national assets and will be managed by the European Commission in order to support countries hit by disasters such as floods, forest fires, earthquakes and epidemics.
