Civil Protection Department

The European Civil Protection Mechanism

• The European Civil Protection Mechanism
• How it works
• The Monitoring and Information Centre (Mic)
• Common Emergency Communication and Information Centre (Cecis)
• Drills
• The training programme

The European Civil Protection Mechanism

The European Civil Protection Mechanism is a strategy of theEuropean Union to promptly respond to emergencies that may occur in territories inside or outside the European Union, through the share of resources in all the member countries. The 27 Member countriesof the European Union participate in the Community mechanism for civil protection along with 3 countries belonging to the European Economic Community (EEC): Norway, Iceland and Liechtenstein.

In Europe, the Civil Protection is part of the General direction of ECHO European Commission - Humanitarian Aid & Civil Protection and is managed by two units:

Civil Protection – Disaster Response: deals with International cooperation. It includes the Mic - The Monitoring and Information Centre - and is responsible for the management of Mic and Cecis operations, expert missions, rapid alert and monitoring actions and the modular approach.

Civil Protection – Prevention and Preparedness: responsible for the development of a Community framework for disaster prevention and preparedness activities, including EU training courses, simulation exercises, exchange of experts, development of new training arrangements (TPG), 112, management of prevention and preparedness projects and Seveso Directive. It will also coordinate communication, public information and overall financial planning for the two units.
The new structure will allow us to develop a better focus on each stage of disaster management and thanks to the new organization, the European Civil Protection Mechanism will be able to deliver a more efficient response to many requests.

The method
This system facilitates the cooperation of emergency interventions by granting a full coordination. European Union cooperation strategies in the Civil Protection do not substitute any national system. All the initiatives are based on the principle of subsidiarity on the basis of which any EU action can take place only in coordination and on request of the affected country. Emergencies are always handled through Civil Protection modules.
Interventions areas
The Mechanism operates in case of terrorist acts, emergencies caused by natural disasters or connected with human activities.

The Mechanism’s tools
The European Civil Protection Mechanism has three tools intended to facilitate both adequate preparedness as well as effective response to disasters at a community level.

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