EU on a Union Civil Protection Mechanism - Main contents

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dossier	COM(2023)194 - Amendment of Decision No 1313/2013/EU on a Union Civil Protection Mechanism.
document	COM(2023)194
date	November 22, 2023

(1) Decision No 1313/2013/EU of the European Parliament and of the Council ¹¹ defines the legal framework of rescEU. rescEU aims to provide assistance in overwhelming situations where overall existing capacities at national level and those committed by Member States to the European Civil Protection Pool are not able to ensure an effective response.

(2) With rising temperatures and prolonged periods of drought, the wildfire risk in the European Union is increasing in scope and the wildfires are becoming more frequent and more intense. The limited availability of specialised response capacities, including amphibious aerial forest firefighting capacities, remains a major weakness and constitutes the Union’s main operational challenge when confronting simultaneous wildfires.

(3) Due to the necessary flexibility that has been afforded by the period provided in Article 35 of Decision No 1313/2013/EU, it is critical to extend the end date of ‘1 January 2025’ to ‘31 December 2027’ to ensure that the Union can secure additional aerial rescEU capacities under the Union Civil Protection Mechanism while the permanent European aerial forest firefighting fleet is gradually established.

(4) Decision No 1313/2013/EU should therefore be amended accordingly.