http://www.legislation.gov.uk/id/eudn/2010/481

Commission Decision

of 29 July 2010

amending Decision 2004/277/EC, Euratom as regards rules for the implementation of Council Decision 2007/779/EC, Euratom establishing a Community civil protection mechanism

(notified under document C(2010) 5090)

(Text with EEA relevance)

(2010/481/EU, Euratom)

THE EUROPEAN COMMISSION,

Having regard to the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union,

Having regard to the Treaty establishing the European Atomic Energy Community,

Having regard to Council Decision 2007/779/EC, Euratom of 8 November 2007 establishing a Community Civil Protection Mechanism1, and in particular Article 12 thereof,

Whereas:

(1)

Commission Decision 2004/277/EC, Euratom of 29 December 2003 laying down rules for the implementation of Council Decision 2001/792/EC, Euratom establishing a Community mechanism to facilitate reinforced cooperation in civil protection assistance intervention2 has been amended by Commission Decision 2008/73/EC, Euratom3 to incorporate implementing rules concerning European civil protection. These rules cover the main characteristics of civil protection modules such as their tasks, capacities, components, and deployment time, and define their appropriate degree of self-sufficiency and interoperability.

(2)

Civil protection modules made up of national resources from one or more Member States on a voluntary basis constitute a contribution to the civil protection rapid response capability called for by the European Council in the conclusions of its meeting of 16 and 17 June 2005 and by the European Parliament in its Resolution of 13 January 2005 on the tsunami disaster. For civil protection modules to be able to contribute to responding to major emergencies, their main characteristics should meet certain general requirements.

(3)

Civil protection modules should be capable of working self-sufficiently for a given period of time. It is therefore necessary to define general requirements for self-sufficiency and, where appropriate, specific requirements that may vary in function of the type of intervention or the type of module concerned. Account should be taken of the common practice of Member States and of international organisations such as extended self-sufficiency periods for urban search and rescue modules or the sharing of tasks between the offering and the requesting country for supporting the operation of modules having an aerial component.

(4)

Measures are needed at Union and participating state levels to enhance the interoperability of civil protection modules, notably regarding training and exercises.

(5)

Recent civil protection operations and exercises with deployment of modules demonstrated the need to partially change the general requirements of two modules listed in Annex II to Decision 2008/73/EC, Euratom, namely the ‘Aerial forest firefighting using airplanes’ and ‘Field hospital’ modules.

(6)

Recent civil protection operations proved the need to add and implement four new types of civil protection modules to reinforce the civil protection rapid response capability, namely ‘Ground forest firefighting’, ‘Ground forest firefighting using vehicles’, ‘Flood containment’ and ‘Flood rescue using boats’ modules.

(7)

Decision 2004/277/EC, Euratom should therefore be amended accordingly.

(8)

The amendments and addition of those modules provided for in the Annex to this Decision are in accordance with the opinion of the Committee for Civil Protection,

HAS ADOPTED THIS DECISION: