Union Civil Protection Mechanism Full Scale Exercises

Topic description

Scope:

This call supports full-scale exercise projects aiming to design, plan, conduct and evaluate exercises with scenarios simulating the situation and conditions of all types of disasters calling for the activation of the Mechanism.

The overall objective of the Mechanism is to strengthen cooperation among Member States and facilitate coordination in the field of civil protection in order to improve the effectiveness of the system for preventing, preparing for and responding to natural and man-made disasters. In accordance with the principle of subsidiarity, it can make support available on request if a disaster overwhelms the response capacity of an affected country. By pooling the civil protection capabilities of participating states, the Mechanism can ensure better protection primarily of people, but also of the natural and cultural environment and of property.

A training and exercises programme has been established with a view to enhance the coordination of civil protection assistance interventions by ensuring improved compatibility and interoperability between the intervention teams and other intervention support as well as by improving the competence of the experts involved. The exercise programme comprises full-scale field exercises, as well as more specific exercises for modules, other response capacities, experts and TAST.

In November 2017, the European Commission presented a proposal amending Decision No 1313/2013/EU (rescEU). Among its objectives, the proposal aims at strengthening disaster preparedness by opening the door to the development of the Union Civil Protection Knowledge Network. The specific objectives of the Network will be to build a common disaster preparedness culture, to provide training for civil protection and emergency management personnel, to increase inter-operability and host nation support measures, and to foster interaction and synergies between civil protection and humanitarian actors. It will contribute to lessons learned, to sharing of knowledge, dissemination of results of scientific research and exchange of best practices across Europe.

Full background information about European civil protection activities is available at http://ec.europa.eu/echo/what/civil-protection_en.

Objective:

The purpose of this call is to finance civil protection exercise projects aiming at planning, preparing, implementing and conducting different civil protection activities including a full-scale exercise in a multinational scenario as main event of the project.

The overall objective is to improve civil protection preparedness and response to all kinds of disasters 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 in a multinational scenario and a learning opportunity for all actors involved in civil protection assistance interventions under the Mechanism.

Proposals

The beneficiaries shall design, plan, conduct and self-evaluate one full-scale exercise project, comprising preparatory actions, one tabletop exercise, one full-scale exercise and after-action activities.

The proposals shall include the following elements:

• Realistic and challenging scenarios
• Management and control structures for the project and for the conduct of the exercises
• Activation of the Mechanism
• EU Civil Protection Teams
• Deployment of assets and teams of the European Emergency Response Capacity (EERC)
• Use of the Common Emergency Communication and Information System (CECIS)
• Information exchange between the affected country(ies), participating states and the ERCC
• Crisis communication
• The involvement of relevant national operational structures
• EU Host Nation Support guidelines
• EU observers
• Evaluation and lessons learned
• EU visibility

Expected impacts:

• Civil protection preparedness and response to all kinds of disasters under the framework of the Mechanism is improved.
• The response capacity of participating states, in particular with regard to teams and other assets provided in civil protection assistance interventions, is improved.
• The civil protection procedures are verified and improved.
• A common approach for the coordination of civil protection assistance interventions is stablished.
• The time taken to deploy assets in major disasters is reduced.
• Cooperation between civil protection organisations of the participating states, third countries, the Commission and other relevant actors is enhanced.
• Lessons learned are identified, shared and implemented.

For more information about EU disaster risk management:

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