Union Civil Protection Mechanism Exercises

Topic description

Specific Challenge:

The present call for proposals is to co-fund exercise projects aimed at assessing and improving Union Civil Protection Mechanism response to major emergencies.

Civil Protection Mechanism Exercise projects

The Union Civil Protection Mechanism, hereafter the Mechanism, was established by Decision No 1313/2013/EU of the European Parliament and of the Council of 17 December 2013 on a Union Civil Protection Mechanism (hereinafter the Decision). In broad terms, the Mechanism aims to provide support, upon request, in the event of major emergencies and to facilitate improved coordination of assistance intervention. It should facilitate the response to protect primarily people but also the environment and property, including cultural heritage, in the event of natural and man-made disasters, acts of terrorism and technological, radiological or environmental accidents, including accidental marine pollution, occurring inside or outside the European Union, taking into account the special needs of the isolated, outermost and other regions or islands of the European Union.

The term "exercises" refers to a range of activities that span from validate existing capabilities to exploring new ones, from focusing on a national response team's performance to focusing on the trans-governmental and cross-sectorial emergency response mechanisms. They are designed to enhance the readiness and capacities of national response and to test or validate crisis management procedures.

The purpose of this call is to enable and support exercise projects which provide opportunities in controlled environments to asses, learn from and improve the response capability of Participating States of the Mechanism and the European Commission.

The Civil Protection Work Programme 2018, in its Action 2.6, provides the framework for the implementation of the priorities set up in the legislation for the exercise programme:

The objective:

To improve civil protection preparedness and response to all kinds of

disasters, including marine pollution, forest fires and chemical, biological,

radiological, nuclear (CBRN) disasters, as well as combined disasters,

climate-change induced disasters, and disasters simultaneously affecting a

number of countries (inside or outside the Participating States of the

Mechanism) by providing a testing environment of established and/or new

operational concepts and procedures of the Mechanism and a learning

opportunity for all actors involved in civil protection assistance

interventions under the Mechanism.

EXERCISE PRIORITIES

• Deployment of assets and teams of the European Emergency Response Capacity (EERC);

• Testing ERCC procedures;

• Information exchange between affected country, Participating States and the ERCC;

• Crisis communication.

Improving the response capacity of Member States, in particular with

regard to teams and other assets provided in civil protection assistance

interventions.

Improving and verifying the procedures and establishing a common

approach for the coordination of civil protection assistance interventions

and reducing the time taken to deploy in major disasters.

Enhancing cooperation between the civil protection and marine pollution

services of Member States, the Commission and other relevant actors.

Identifying and sharing lessons learned.

Testing the implementation of lessons learned.

TYPE OF ACTIVITIES WHICH CAN BE FINANCED UNDER THIS CALL

Design, plan, conduct and evaluate exercises with scenarios simulating the

situation and conditions of all types of disasters for the activation of the

Mechanism, including marine pollution, forest fires, and CBRN disasters,

as well as combined disasters and disasters affecting simultaneously a

number of countries (inside or outside the participating states of the

Mechanism), taking into account climate change impacts where

appropriate. The design and planning for the exercises should also take

into account the results of evaluations of previous exercises as well as

lessons learned from civil protection actions. Towards the end of the

exercise project, recommendations and a plan to implement the

recommendations should be developed based on the findings that have

been outlined in the evaluation.

The exercises can be full-scale exercises, command post exercises with

limited deployment, and table top exercises. A combination of two or

three of these exercise concepts is considered as strength. The involvement

of Member States is ensured through the ERCC, according to established

procedures (e.g. use of CECIS, and activation of the Mechanism) and

deployment of exercise participants as defined in Article 32 of

Commission Implementing Decision 2014/762/EU laying down rules for

the implementation of Decision No 1313/2013/EU of the European

Parliament and of the Council on a Union Civil Protection Mechanism14,

i.e. intervention teams (including modules), teams of assessment and/or

coordination experts (EUCPT), national key contact point staff, other

intervention support resources and officials of the EU Institutions,

including humanitarian aid experts (if required by the scenario).

The activation of the UCPM and the subject of the

Host Nation Support should be integrated in every Mechanism exercise.

For more information about EU disaster risk management:

http:// http://ec.europa.eu/echo/files/aid/countries/factsheets/thematic/disaster_risk_management_en.pdf

For more information about exercise projects co-financed under previous calls:

http:// http://ec.europa.eu/echo/funding-evaluations/financing-civil-protection/civil-protection-exercises_en