THE EUROPEAN – SECURITY AND DEFENCE UNION
EU Crisis prevention − new structures and coordination The EU Commission continues actively the cooperation with main actors Hans Das ........................................ 46 Nannette Bühl-Cazaubon.................. 48
Abraham (Avi) Bachar...................... 50
With the built-up of efficient operational staff capabilities, the EU shows its will to perform
The role of the future European Emergency Response Centre by Hans Das, Head of Unit Emergency Response, DG ECHO-Humanitarian Aid and Civil Protection, Brussels The size and frequency of both natural and man-made disasters is on the rise. The year 2010 alone brought the earthquake in Haiti, the floods in Pakistan, and the explosion of the Deepwater Horizon oil drilling rig in the Gulf of Mexico. In Europe, severe floods and storms as well as forest fires and the eruption of volcano Eyjafjallajökull have made headlines. With Japan being hit by the triple disaster of an earthquake, tsunami and nuclear incident, the year 2011 continues the general trend. In fact, the recorded annual number of disasters worldwide has increased fivefold from 78 in 1975 to nearly 400 today, and although the EU disaster response is well-established overall, new initiatives are needed to cope with these growing challenges. One such initiative is the establishment of the future European Emergency Response Centre.
European assistance to Japan and Libya The 11 March earthquake in Japan with its ensuing tsunami wave and damage of the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant are a strong reminder that even a highly developed country can be overwhelmed by disaster and needs to have reliable partners to provide support then. In response to the Japanese request for assistance, the EU reacted promptly. 14 Member States have made generous offers of assistance via the Monitoring and Information Centre (MIC), resulting in the delivery of 400 tons of EU assistance, including sophisticated protection equipment, as part of a coordinated EU effort to help Japan. Nine Member States have also made financial donations, alongside with the Commission’s € 10 million funding decision. The MIC was in constant contact with the Japanese authorities and, amongst others, a team on the ground to identify the most pressing needs, to pool the European in-kind assistance and to offer it as a single, consolidated package. Throughout the emergency operation, Japan insisted on the need for a coordinated European approach combining the assistance of
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the different Member States. The Civil Protection team also coordinated the use of free-of-charge transport options to Japan, processed requests for European co-funding of transports where necessary, and enabled the delivery of the in-kind assistance directly to the affected prefectures. The burden on local capacities was thus minimized, and Japan highly appreciated the almost autonomous operation. The Commission is also increasingly taking advantage of the synergies and complementarities between humanitarian aid and civil protection, as was recently shown by the Libya case. The EU Civil Protection Mechanism assisted in the evacuation of ca. 5,800 EU citizens and, in close cooperation with the International Organization for Migration and the UNHCR, in the repatriation of more than 30,000 third country nationals who were stranded mostly at the Tunisian and Egyptian borders. At the same time, DG ECHO made 40 million EUR available to fund emergency humanitarian assistance for the population affected by the Libyan unrest, including repatriation efforts for
Hans Das Hans Das is Head of DG ECHO’s Emergency Response Unit since 1 May 2010. Previously, Hans Das was among others: 1997 Head of Legal Department in the International Commission for Real Property Claims (CRPC) in Bosnia and Herzegovina. 1999 Legal Officer at the United Nations Housing and Property Directorate in Kosovo and affairs department of the Ministry of the Flemish Community of Belgium (20002001). In 2004, he joined the European Commission. 2007, as a Policy officer in the Civil Protection Unit, he was one of the main drafters of the revision of the European civil protection legislation and became Acting Head of the new unit responsible for disaster response, which includes the EC Monitoring and Information Centre (MIC).
