Forest fires highlight EU crisis management flaws

European officials this autumn will look for a way of speeding up EU support for countries struggling with natural disasters. Forest fires in Greece this month have killed more than 60 people, as well as destroying hundreds of homes and almost 200,000 hectares of countryside.

European countries have provided fire-fighting equipment and aircraft through the European Commission’s Monitoring and Information Centre. But a Commission environment spokeswoman said that "this month has shown us that the existing capacity may not be enough to react as quickly as we wish".

Commission officials are now looking at various ways of taking action more quickly in the future, through a "standing intervention force in case of emergency".

The European United Left/Nordic Green Left group has asked for a debate on the forest fires to be added to next week’s plenary session in Strasbourg (3-6 September). Parliament is expected officially to add the issue to its plenary agenda this afternoon (30 August).

Greek Socialist MEP Katerina Batzeli said the forest fires were "the biggest national tragedy in [Greece’s] recent history. A tragedy without catharsis".

She welcomed efforts to improve the way the EU deals with disasters in the future. "We need to mobilise national resources [and] reconsider actions financed by the European Structural Funds, agricultural policy and other community policies," Batzeli said, adding that reinforcing civil protection policy at a community, national and regional level should be a priority matter for concern.

But UK centre-right MEP Philip Bradbourn said talk of an EU intervention force was "very much a token gesture".

European officials this autumn will look for a way of speeding up EU support for countries struggling with natural disasters. Forest fires in Greece this month have killed more than 60 people, as well as destroying hundreds of homes and almost 200,000 hectares of countryside.