MEP Željana Zovko’s Opinion on Union civil protection mechanism was adopted at the today’s session of the Development Committee (DEVE) as a part of the Report of the Environment, Public Health and Food Safety Committee (ENVI) on the proposal of the European Parliament and the Council on changes to the Decision 1313/2013.
This Opinion happens to be very important for the Republic of Croatia, considering that Croatia was together with Portugal and Italy mostly affected by forest fires in 2017.
As a DEVE rapporteur Zovko stresses in her Opinion the importance of strengthening the national-level civil protection capacity, supplemented by available EU instruments. Namely, the adopted Zovko’s provision envisages the maximum co-financing rate of 55% of acceptable transportation costs for the EU member-countries, which may not participate in the joint European civil protection capacities.
Furthermore, Zovko’s proposal envisages changes of one of the most problematic parts of the original Commission legislative proposals on rescEU about authorisations of the Commission for commandership and control of the rescEU system. The Commission will remain responsible for allocation of capacities of the rescEU system. In the context of allocating and defining particular types of rescEU system capacities, Zovko’s adopted Opinion includes provisions on including the land fire-fighting capacities and the obligation of consulting the regions exposed to crises.
In the context of development policy, Zovko’s Opinion stresses the importance of increasing the capacities for training and exchange of know-how between the European Union and international organisations and the third countries in order to support fulfilment of international obligation of disaster risk reduction, particularly those defined by the Sendai Framework.
Zovko’s Opinion was adopted at today’s DEVE session with 21 votes.