EU civil protection mechanism

The EU civil protection mechanism (or EU civil protection mechanism , EU mechanism , EU civil protection procedure or EU community procedure ; English European Civil Protection Mechanism ) refers to the agreements of the European Union that regulate increased cooperation in the event of disasters . The functional core of the mechanism is the observation and information center .

Emergence

The first attempts at such concepts go back to the 1980s, when, after major environmental disasters, cooperation began to be intensified and international cooperation to be regulated.

As a result of these efforts, the first agreement came into being in October 2001, in which the EU interior ministers laid down the “Community procedure for promoting enhanced cooperation in civil protection operations” , which is also known as the “mechanism”. The mechanism was further improved in 2007 when it was reformulated as the “Community Civil Protection Mechanism (Recast)” .

The 28 EU member states and the three EEA states Norway, Iceland and Liechtenstein as well as Macedonia are currently participating in this process . It is used at the request of one of these states for joint relief measures in the event of natural or man-made disasters. Requests for help outside the EU are also coordinated in this way.

Disasters

In total, the EU mechanism was used more than 330 times between 2001 and January 2020, including and additionally for the following disasters (excerpt):

• Earthquake in Chile (February 2010)
• Flood in Hungary (May 2010)
• Flood disaster in Romania (July 2010)
• Kolontár dam breach (October 2010)
• Tōhoku earthquake 2011 (March 2011)
• Explosion in Cyprus (July 2011)
• Forest fires in Sweden and Latvia (July 2018)
• Forest fires in Greece (July 2018)
• Coronavirus pandemic 2019/2020
• Earthquake near Zagreb 2020 (March 2020)

Modules

High-performance pump of the Salzburg Fire Brigade Association (Austria) during floods in the Balkans in 2014

Truck with a floating high-performance pump from the Czech fire brigade

Truck with equipment from the Urban Search and Rescue Team Netherlands

The mechanism maintains standardized modules across Europe:

• Aerial forest fire fighting module using helicopters module (FFFH)
• Aerial forest fire fighting module using airplanes module (FFFP)
• Advanced Medical Post (AMP)
• Advanced medical post with surgery module (AMPS)
• Field hospital module (FHOS)
• Medical aerial evacuation of disaster victims module (MEVAC)
• Emergency temporary shelters module (ETS)
• Chemical, biological, radiological and nuclear detection and sampling (CBRN) module (CBRNDET)
• Search and rescue in CBRN conditions module (CBRNUSAR)
• High capacity pumping module (HCP)
• Water purification module (WP)
• Medium Urban Search and Rescue (MUSAR)
• Heavy Urban Search and Rescue (HUSAR)
• Flood Containment (FC)
• Ground forest fire fighting (GFFF)
• Ground forest fire fighting using vehicles (GFFF-V)
• Flood rescue using boats (FRB)

In addition, Technical Assistance Support Teams (TAST) are provided as a support unit for modules and experts.

Contact points

Germany

The so-called National Contact Point ( NCP ) of the EU for requests for help to the Federal Republic of Germany is the permanently manned Joint Reporting and Situation Center (GMLZ) of the federal and state governments. The GMLZ is affiliated with the Federal Office for Civil Protection and Disaster Assistance (BBK), which is an authority of the Federal Ministry of the Interior and is assigned to Section 2 of the KM department.

Austria

The EU's contact point for requests for assistance to Austria is the permanently manned Federal Warning Center .

Web links

• European Civil Protection (English)
• Community procedure for civil protection (PDF) New version from 2007
• EU community procedure at THW
• MEPs are starting to learn lessons from emergency aid to Haiti
• Monitoring and Information Center for Civil Protection (PDF; 93 kB) Example of an application during the flood in Moldova in July 2010

Individual evidence

1. ↑ ^{a b} European cooperation in disaster control ( memento from July 23, 2012 in the web archive archive.today ) on the website of the Federal Ministry of the Interior, accessed on October 8, 2010
2. ↑ European Civil Protection and Humanitarian Aid: EU Civil Protection Mechanism. In: ec.europa.eu. January 15, 2020, accessed April 12, 2020 . 
3. ↑ Chile earthquake ( English ) European Union. Archived from the original on April 17, 2014. Retrieved February 4, 2018.
4. ↑ Germany, Denmark, the Czech Republic, the Netherlands, Austria and Croatia offer Hungary 2.12 million sandbags to combat floods from May 27, 2010, accessed on October 8, 2010.
5. ↑ Romania activates EU civil protection procedures due to floods: Four member states offer equipment from July 9, 2010, accessed on October 8, 2010.
6. ↑ Toxic sludge disaster: Hungary activates EU civil protection procedures and calls on experts . European Commission. October 7, 2010. Retrieved February 4, 2018.
7. ↑ Karoline Meta Beisel: Coronavirus: EU unit coordinates emergency measures. In: Süddeutsche Zeitung. January 31, 2020, accessed February 2, 2020 . 
8. ↑ http://ec.europa.eu/echo/files/civil_protection/civil/prote/pdfdocs/Summary.pdf