The EU Commissioners for the environment (Stavros Dimas) and external relations (Benita Ferrero-Waldner) jointly presented two documents in Brussels last week containing a series of new proposals aimed at introducing or reinforcing European structures of intervention in the event of natural calamities, emergencies and disasters. According to Ferrero-Waldner, “after the tsunami there is a need for the EU to provide better quality and greater capacity for rapid response”, though acknowledging that the “European system of civil protection is as a whole the best that currently exists”. The Commission proposes to create special European teams ready to be deployed at any time and in any part of the world by mobilising special “national emergency aid teams on permanent standby for European civil protection interventions”. Brussels also proposed to boost the European network of experts (from the current 69 to over 150) so as to increase its alert and rapid response capability. By the end of the year, the Union should have set up “European bodies of volunteers for humanitarian aid”. For information: http://www.europa.eu.int/comm/environment
