UCPM – EU CIVIL PROTECTION MECHANISM – 2021-2027

The EU Civil Protection Mechanism has been established in 2001 by the EU Commission. It aims to strengthen cooperation between the EU Member States and 6 other Participating States on civil protection to improve prevention, preparedness and response to disasters. Whenever an emergency overwhelms the response capabilities of a country in Europe and beyond, it can request assistance through the Mechanism. The European Commission plays a key role in coordinating the disaster response worldwide.

Objectives

• To achieve a high level of protection against disasters by preventing or reducing their potential effects, by fostering a culture of prevention and by improving cooperation between the civil protection and other relevant services
• To enhance preparedness at Member States and Union level to respond to disasters
• To facilitate rapid and efficient response in the event of disasters or imminent disasters
• To increase public awareness and preparedness for disasters
• To strenghten resilience to future disasters and emergencies at Member States and Union level by facilitating cross-sharing of experiences, good practices and lessons learnt and by promoting close collaboration and communication between various actors and stakeholders across the entire disaster management cycle (prevention, preparedness and response)

Priorities

• Progress in implementing the disaster prevention framework: measured by the number of Member States that have made available to the Commission a summary of their risk assessments and a summary of the assessment of their risk management capability as referred to in Article 6 of Decision n° 1313/2013/EU, in line with the guidelines to be developed by the Commission and by the number/outcome of Member States participating in voluntary peer reviews on the assessment of risk management capabilities
• Progress in increasing the level of readiness for disasters: measured by the quantity of response capacities included in the European Civil Protection Pool and additional capacities developed as rescEU capacities, in relation to the capacity goals referred to in Article 11 and the number of modules registered in the CECIS
• Progress in improving the response to disasters, measured by the speed of interventions under the Mechanism and the extent to which the assistance contributes to the needs on the ground
• Progress in increasing public awareness and preparedness for disasters, measured by the level of awareness of Union citizens and private sector of the risks in their region
• Progress in improving the protection of citizens and critical infrastructure against chemical, biological, radiological, nuclear and explosives incidents (CBRN-E) and emerging threats
• Support to the implementation of the Commission’s Action Plan to enhance preparedness against chemical, biological, radiological and nuclear (CBRN) security risks (COM(2017) 610)
• Support to achieving the objectives of Council Regulation 2020/2094 establishing a European Union Recovery Instrument to support the recovery in the aftermath of the COVID-19 crisis by increasing the level of the Union’s crisis preparedness and avoiding a re-emergence of the crisis

Financed actions

• Prevention and prepardness tools and frameworks
• Activities aiming to improve disaster risk management at national/sub-national level
• Follow-up activities from Peer Reviews and Advisory Missions
• Feasability studies
• Risk mangement plans
• Reparing costs of response capacities
• Development of additional reserve capacities
• Development or update of existing standard operational procedures