Competences of the Department
The Department of Civil Protection is a structure of the Prime Minister’s Office and has the function of coordinating and directing the National Service of Civil Protection and when a national emergency is declared, it coordinates the relief of the whole system.
It is involved in international interventions, within the European Civil Protection Mechanism or according to bilateral agreements, and promotes initiatives and programmes to improves risk forecast and prevention.
The Civil Protection Department operates on a European and International level with civil protection interventions abroad, promoting international relations, agreements and technical scientific programmes to improve the prevention of the natural risks or those caused by man.
In particular:
• it participates in technical-scientific knowledge exchange and sharing projects and interventions in Europe and on an international scale (e.g. Euromed);
• it belongs to monitoring networks for preventing and forecasting risks;
• it maintains permanent relations with research centres, specialists and structures organised by the civil protection department of the other Countries;
• it promotes, coordinates and participates in international drills;
• it shares its own organisational model with the other countries, also though guided tours to international delegations interested in furthering their knowledge of the Italian Civil Protection system;
• it participates in meetings and events whose objective is to improve coordination and promote the civil protection culture at an international level.
It also participates in the European Civil Protection Mechanism, the instrument of the European Union activated to respond in a timely and effective manner to the emergencies occurring on an international scale. All the interventions are based on the principle of subsidiarity, according to which the actions of the Union must always be undertaken on request of and in coordination with the authorities of the affected state. The emergencies can be tackled by means of pre-constituted intervention modules.
Emergency Interventions. In the event of a natural calamity or of a serious event which affects the population of a European or overseas country, the Department may make its own resources and technical competences available, in accordance with the local authorities, either in the emergency phase or in the recovery and reconstruction phase. Like for national emergencies, the Department of Civil Protection declares the state of emergency with a decree and outlines the interventions in the orders to cope with and overcome the situation. The measures prepared by the Department are signed by the Prime Minister.
Like for domestic emergencies, the Department of Civil Protection defines the measures, signed by the Prime Minister, to declare the state of emergency (decrees) and those necessary to cope with the calamities on an international scale (orders), as envisaged by art. 4 o law no. 152 dated 2005.
RSS