The European Commission on Wednesday proposed measures to reinforce disaster response capacity of the European Union (EU) through integration of existing resources and better coordination.
The commission proposed to transform the EU's civil protection mechanism into a genuine operational center and beef it up with reserve resources, to reinforce humanitarian aid, strengthen the global response capacity and improve coordination with the various humanitarian actors, such as the United Nations and the Red Cross.
It also proposed to set up a European-wide disaster response training network and to improve disaster preparedness measures both within the EU and in third countries.
The commission believes that today's threats are often of a cross-border nature and require multilateral and coordinated responses.
"When helping Tsunami victims in South Asia, evacuating EU citizens from war-torn Lebanon or fighting floods and forest fires in Europe, we can only protect our citizens and help others if we act together in solidarity," said European Commission President Jose Manuel Barroso.
"When responding to such disasters, Europe, as in so many other ways, is strongest when we combine our capacities and profit from our diversity and different expertise."
The commission, the executive body of the EU, is expected to put forward an action plan before the end of 2008.
Source:Xinhua
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