The end of August, in a letter to the Prime Minister of the Hellenic Republic Costas Karamanlis, the Presidents of the European Economic and Social Committee (EESC), Dimitris Dimitriadis, and the Committee of the Regions (COR), Michel Delabarre’ expressed not only their deep grief and sorrow to tragedy provoked by the fires in Greece, but they also recalled the idea on the project of the former European Commissioner Michel Barnier on a European civil protection force.
This project focuses more particularly on the creation of a rapid reaction force on forest fires, in order to eradicate the further destruction of forests provoking deforestation. The devastating consequences for the environmental economical and social, conditions especially in the southern regions of Europe have to become a major concern for the European institutions.
Therefore the Presidents of EESC and COR addressed a copy of the letter to Mr. Karamanlis to the Presidents of the three other European institutions, Portuguese Prime Minister Socrates as current President of the European Council, Prof. Dr. Poettering, President of the European Parliament and President Barroso of the European Commission.
The EESC plenary on September 26 passed a resolution on natural disasters asking to equip the existing Community Mechanism for Civil Protection with tools like a satellite communication system that would render it more effective. Appropriate legislation should ensure that all Member States comply with Community civil protection standards.
Member States must step up their cooperation in order to achieve a direct protection of the population from natural disasters. Ultimately, the suggestion of former European Commissioner Barnier to create a permanent force with main units ready to intervene at any time needs to be followed.
(For the next issue of European Business Review, our EU correspondent N. Peter Kramer interviewed EESC-President Dimitris Dimitriadis over how to organise the European civil protection force, and also about the EU Reform Treaty and the role of civil society and the EESC in discussion with Brazil, Russia, India and China over energy and climate change.)
