Op-Ed | The EU Civil Protection Mechanism – European solidarity with Romania

The Op-Ed was originally published in Romanian, on Digi24.ro, here.

A tragic event took place a few days ago in Romania, in the town of Crevedia. A fire and the subsequent explosions caused loss of life and dozens of injuries.

My thoughts are with the families who have lost someone they love, and I wish all the injured people a fast recovery and good health.

Just a few days before the tragedy, I was seeing a lot of news about the Romanian firefighters in Greece and about their decisive contribution to fighting the forest fires that the Greek authorities have faced this summer. Romania has also contributed, in an exemplary manner, to the management of other crises such as the earthquake that hit Türkiye and Syria earlier this year.

Now the news is about the high number of firefighters who were injured while fighting the Crevedia fire and who, alongside local residents, police officers or gendarmes, are in need of medical care. Some of them are in a serious condition. The high number of injured people has overloaded the medical infrastructure of the country, leading the Romanian authorities to seek help from other European countries. They have responded promptly and some of the injured have already been transferred to hospitals in Belgium, Italy, Germany, Norway or Austria, in order to receive treatment and to allow for a better allocation of hospital resources in Romania to inpatients.

Both Romania’s aid for firefighting in Greece and the aid received by Romania for the treatment of injured people have one element in common: the EU Civil Protection Mechanism. Set up in 2001 by the European Commission, the Mechanism is a cooperation framework for Member States, but also for nine non-EU participating countries, that allows them to prevent or to manage disasters.

A disaster can hit at any time and even the best prepared countries can be overwhelmed by its scale. In such difficult times, European solidarity is all the more important! The EU Civil Protection Mechanism provides a framework under which solidarity manifests itself in a fast and efficient manner, and human and material resources are channelled to where they are most needed.

How does it work? In practice, a Member State facing a disaster the management of which exceeds its own capacities calls upon the Emergency Response Coordination Centre (the operational core of the Mechanism). The Centre mobilises and coordinates either resources made directly available by the participating states or those directly available to the EU.

Over time, in the 22 years since it was created, the EU Civil Protection Mechanism has been activated more than 650 times for situations such as earthquakes, floods, fires or epidemics, or even pandemics such as COVID-19.

The war in Ukraine has also generated unprecedented situations that needed an effective response, and the Mechanism helped support Ukrainian people, whether they remained in the country or fled to the neighbouring countries. Logistical hubs for a better coordination of the assistance to Ukraine and its citizens are currently hosted by Romania (in Suceava), Poland and Slovakia.  I am still moved when I remember, even now, that I participated alongside EU Commissioner for Crisis Management, Janez Lenarčič, to the inauguration of the Suceava hub in March 2022 – just a few weeks after the war started. This hub is a strong demonstration of European solidarity from Romania and an important contribution to managing the largest humanitarian disaster in Europe since World War II. Since it started operating, dozens of international missions have used it, delivering to Ukraine thousands of tonnes of food, medicines and medical equipment, blankets, power generators and other goods and supplies needed by a country at war.

We all sometimes encounter, over the course of our lives, difficult times that we manage to overcome – either easily or in a hard way. It is much harder when we are alone, and much easier when we get help from those around us.

The same is true for a country hit by a disaster, when solidarity and support from other countries help both the country and its citizens to more easily overcome a tragedy. The European Union means, among many other things, solidarity and support in difficult times. The EU Civil Protection Mechanism is now supporting Romania and its citizens in the difficult and trying times they are facing in the aftermath of the tragic event in Crevedia.  The prompt support provided now by European states shows us, once again, that together we are stronger!

Romania can always count on European solidarity!