The majority of the Member States of the European Union (EU) agreed on Monday to anticipate the reinforcement of the means of the European civil protection mechanism to combat forest fires proposed by the European Commission, the Minister of Internal Administration said in Brussels.
Speaking to journalists after participating in a ministerial meeting of EU Civil Protection officials to discuss forest fire response mechanisms based on this summer’s experience, José Luís Carneiro revealed that they all shared “the collective conscience that it is necessary to strengthen the meansanticipate and preposition them, preparing them in advance for the year 2023.”
The minister specified that the proposal presented by the European Commissioner responsible for Crisis Management, and which received the support of the majority of the Member States participating in the meeting, supposes a reinforcement of the means, specifically the air, and the anticipation of his availability.
“In fact, it was common to support the idea transmitted by Portugal that 2029 and 2030, as the limit years for the reinforcement of these resources, is too late due to the new circumstances and the extreme fires that we will have to face. Just yesterday it was already too late for the reinforcement of these aerial resources”, she observed.
In this way, he pointed out, they all agreed on “the need to reinforce the available means and anticipate the purchase or rental of these means” for the temporary transition reserve, “with a view to preparing in advance 2023“, especially because “the forecasts for 2023 are even more demanding than those we had for 2022”.
The Home Secretary revealed that most countries also supported the idea of “carry out a prepositioning of means based on the risks considered”, similar to the experience carried out in Greece, which “had effective results from the point of view of the speed of response”, declaring itself in favor of the Commission’s proposal to create four of these centers, Portugal having expressed its will to host one.
“Portugal expressed its willingness to host one of these media prepositioning centers, if necessary, in articulation, as it could not fail to be, with Spain, that is, in what has to do with proximity to the border and, therefore, creating a faster response in the context of the Iberian Peninsula”, he said.
The minister explained that, after the informal exchange of ideas on this day, “what is planned is that at the end of September the proposal may be ‘closed'” by the Commission, that the technical work be carried out in the month of October , so that at the end of the year there may be a plan “to enter the field as soon as spring begins, since the fires start earlier and last longer”.
Taking stock of the informal meeting that day, José Luís Carneiro commented that, “taking into account what happened this year, forest fires have come to be assumed as a problem for most European countries”, with “a greater awareness now”. of all the European countries for what is a common challenge and that requires the mobilization of common resources”.
“It is no longer just a problem in southern Europe and the Mediterranean countries, but also a problem in central and northern Europe,” he said, noting that this year “there were 60% more fires and 69% more fires. ”. across the EU compared to the previous year and 40% of this plus 60% occurred in Central European countries.”
Due to this situation, “the European civil protection mechanism has not been able to respond to all the requests for support from the States that make up the mechanism”, as Commissioner Lenarcic had pointed out in his opening speech at the meeting, to underline the need for the reinforcement of the EU’s response capacity.
The minister pointed out that Portugal made three formal requests for help, “that coincided—and took the opportunity to thank the solidarity of several countries—, but acknowledged that, in mid-August, there was one of the phases of fire fighting in which the national authorities tried to have these means, but they were not available, which is For this reason, the request was not formalized, given the “inability to respond” of the European mechanism.
José Luís Carneiro also announced that the European Commission and the Czech rotating presidency of the Council of the EU accepted a Portuguese proposal to hold a seminar next November so that lessons can be learned and “gain knowledge of the great fires that devastated throughout Europe and Portugal” in 2022, with a view to the action plan for 2023.
Source: Observadora
