Strasbourg, 12 February 2019
Member of the European Parliament Željana Zovko participated today in Strasbourg in a debate on the Union Civil Protection Mechanism.
As a rapporteur for the opinion from the Committee on Development (DEVE) Zovko was involved in creation of the Report on providing support to the Mechanism, where she stressed the need to strengthen the national civil protection capacities, whereas the Union instrument – the Union Civil Protection Mechanism should be complimentary to them. Zovko was intensively working on behalf of the DEVE on adoption of the text of the Report in the form which would be in the interest of the Republic of Croatia.
The new mechanism should not be isolated, but should rather rely on other European instruments and focus on risk prevention.
“Faced with huge forest fires in the South of Europe last year, which had a big material damage and numerous casualties as a consequence, we simply had to react, particularly having in mind numerous weaknesses of the existing mechanisms for tackling disasters.”
Zovko pointed out that the Report contained a provision allowing a higher co-financing rate to the member states, which may not participate in the civil protection pool, not higher than 55% of the eligible transport costs, what would be very important for the Republic of Croatia, which is considered a crisis point, as it borders the rest of the South-Eastern Europe and must be carefully taken into account in assets distribution, meaning that focus must be on strengthening the preventive measures.
In July 2018, MEP Zovko organised the conference “Union Civil Protection Mechanism – Security at the Service of Citizens in Split. The Conference gathered all relevant stakeholders from the civil protection field in the Republic of Croatia. The participants discussed the new advanced Union Civil Protection Mechanism, introduction of the rescEU instrument and results and needs of local civil protection organisations in Croatia. The Conference was attended by Christos Stylianides, European Commissioner for Humanitarian Aid and Crisis Management.
Commissioner Stylianides thanked MEP Zovko for having participated in the creation of the Report and pointed out that the Mechanism had further improved and enhanced the European solidarity.
The Report was accepted today by the majority of MEPs.