EU plans disaster response unit after killer waves wreak havoc

By Andrew Beatty

Date: 13/01/05

The creation of an EU Crisis Management Unit to plan and co-ordinate the Union's response to future disasters is being considered by member states following the Indian Ocean tsunami.

Under European Commission proposals to be submitted this month, a group of Brussels-based experts would manage the EU's emergency response, backed up by national rapid response units, ready to go into the field at short notice.

"The added value of a crisis management unit is that we can react even better, even more quickly and in such a way that we act for the whole EU," External Relations Commissioner Benita Ferrero-Waldner told European Voice.

She will urge capitals to share resources, providing the EU with specialised teams able to deal with specific aspects of civil crisis management, such as medical treatment, evacuation of the injured, fire services or emergency reconstruction.

Despite reluctance among some member states, the Commission has been asked to come up with proposals in time for a meeting of foreign ministers on 31 January.

But earlier attempts to forge a 'civil crisis management corps', including a Finnish-Swedish proposal last November, have failed.

There is still concern in some capitals that national instruments could be compromised or duplicated, or that EU initiatives would have little added value.

The UK has expressed concern about the role of the unit and its impact on national planning. But a previously sceptical Germany now says that it can envisage backing an EU point of co-ordination, albeit on a limited scale.

"We do not exclude the possibility of a small group of experts," one German diplomat said.

The Commission is keen to assuage member states' fears. "What I want in Brussels is not a huge structure. It is a structure that would plan, would coordinate and mobilise the rapid reaction forces in the member states," said Ferrero-Waldner.

"What we have to do is draw on those capabilities that are there in the member states."

A meeting of the Commission's 'Relex cluster' - the president of the Commission plus the trade, external relations, development and enlargement commissioners - will discuss the proposals in detail on 20 January.

Stefan Amér, an advisor to Swedish Foreign Minister Laila Freivalds and doctor, who travelled to Thailand in the immediate aftermath of the tsunami, told European Voice that a co-ordinated response might have improved conditions in crowded hospitals.

"Perhaps [with co-ordination] we could have acted faster," he said.

"The Thais acted heroically, but they were exhausted, we could see a very big need for help and assistance," said Amér, who along with another Swedish doctor operated on 15 patients at immediate risk of septic shock and amputation.

Amér said defence assets such as strategic lift and ambulance capabilities could have been used to help transport the injured to hospitals.

Overwhelmed by the scale of the disaster, ambulance services in some parts of Thailand were replaced by civilians with bicycles helping the injured to hospitals.

The need for consular co-ordination between member states has also been highlighted by the Asian crisis, with hundreds of EU citizens trying to find relatives and extricate themselves.

Article reports on European Commission proposals to be submitted in January 2005, according to which a group of Brussels-based experts would manage the EU's emergency response to natural disasters such as the December 2004 tsunami in South and South-East Asia. The group would be backed up by national rapid response units, ready to go into the field at short notice.