Explanatory Memorandum to COM(2020)220 - Amendment of Decision No 1313/2013/EU on a Union Civil Protection Mechanism - Main contents
Please note
This page contains a limited version of this dossier in the EU Monitor.
| dossier | COM(2020)220 - Amendment of Decision No 1313/2013/EU on a Union Civil Protection Mechanism. |
|---|---|
| source | COM(2020)220  |
| date | 02-06-2020 |
1. CONTEXT OF THE PROPOSAL
·Reasons for and objectives of the proposal
The proposal is intended to introduce some targeted changes to Decision No 1313/2013/EU (‘the Decision’) on a Union Civil Protection Mechanism (‘Union Mechanism’), under which the European Union supports, coordinates and supplements the action of Member States in the field of civil protection to prevent, prepare for and respond to natural and man-made disasters within and outside the Union. Building on the principles of solidarity and shared responsibility, the overall objective of this proposal is to ensure that the Union can provide a better crisis and emergency support to its citizens in Europe and beyond.
This proposal builds on the progress achieved to date by the European Parliament and the Council in their consideration and deliberations on Commission proposal COM(2019) 125 final 1 .
The Union Mechanism has proven to be a useful tool to mobilise and coordinate the assistance provided by the Participating States responding to crises inside and outside the Union, constituting a tangible proof of European solidarity. Similarly, the Union will temporarily facilitate, under the Emergency Support Instrument, the transfer of patients and medical personnel between Member States, an essential contribution which brings tangible benefits given the cross-border dimension of the actions. However, the COVID-19 pandemic has shown - the need for better European Union preparedness for future large-scale emergencies, while proving the limitations of the current framework. The inter-connectedness of our societies confronting the same emergency and their resulting difficulty to help each other has demonstrated the need of enhanced action at Union level, as also requested by the European Council Joint Statement on 26 March 2020.
The Union Mechanism currently relies totally on Member States’ resources. As shown in recent months, this system of mutual European solidarity tends to falter if all, or most, Member States are impacted by the same emergency simultaneously and are therefore unable to offer each other assitance. In such cases of large-scale high impact emergencies, the Union is currently unable to step in sufficiently to fill these critical gaps. Ensuring an effective overall Union response to large-scale emergencies, the Union Mechanism requires more flexibility and autonomy to act at Union level, in situations when overwhelmed Member States cannot do so.
The Commission is proposing to harness the full power of the EU budget to mobilise investment and frontload financial support in the crucial first years of recovery. These proposals are based on:
• an emergency European Union Recovery Instrument as an exceptional measure, based on Article 122 of TFEU, the financing of which will be based on an empowerment provided in the proposal for the Own Resources Decision. The funds will enable implementation of fast-acting measures to protect livelihoods, increase prevention and strengthen resilience and recovery in response to the crisis.
• a reinforced Multi-Annual Financial Framework for 2021-2027.
Against this background, the Commission proposes a targeted revision of the current Union Mechanism’s legislation in order to address the main challenges that the Union Mechanism faces today. The changes will enable the Union Mechanism to act more efficiently and effectively, fill existing gaps and save lives. In concrete terms, the changes contained in this proposal are aimed at achieving the following objectives:
a) Reinforce a cross-sectoral and societal preparedness approach to trans-boundary disaster risk management, including establishing a baseline and planning elements at a European level, taking into account how climate change affects disaster risk.
b) ensure that the Commission is able to directly procure an adequate safety net of rescEU capacities;
c) provide the Commission with the logistical capacity to provide multi-purpose air services in case of emergencies and to ensure timely transport and delivery of assistance;
d) design a more flexible system for response to large-scale emergencies;
e) enhance the Emergency Response Coordination Centre’s operational coordination and monitoring role in support of the EU’s swift and effective response to a broad range of crises inside and outside the Union, in complementarity with existing crisis response mechanisms and in line with existing inter-institutional arrangements;
f) enable stronger investment in preparedness at Union level and further simplification of budget implementation;
g) enable the implementation of recovery and resilience measures under the Union Civil Protection Mechanism through financing from the European Union Recovery Instrument, constituting external assigned revenues according to Article 21 i of the Financial Regulation.
The enhanced Union Mechanism would allow the Union and the Member States to be better prepared for and react quickly and effectively in a future crisis, in particular those with a high-impact given the potential disruption to our economies and societies, as seen so clearly in the COVID-19 emergency. Over the long-term, preventing and minimising the impact of disasters with better preparedness is more cost-effective than responding in particular given how climate change and environmental degradation are increasing disaster risk globally and in the Union.
·Consistency with existing policy provisions in the policy area
Europe has a responsibility to show solidarity and to support those in need. Solidarity, which underpins Decision No 1313/2013/EU, will be strengthened under this proposal, alongside the principles of shared responsibility and accountability.
This proposal builds on the positive results the existing framework has delivered so far, and intends to correct its shortcomings with reinforced provisions so as to continue to support, coordinate and complement the action of the Member States in this area.
·Consistency with other Union policies
The actions envisaged under the revised Union Mechanism are aligned with the overall objective of the Union to ensure that all relevant Union policies and instruments contribute to reinforcing the Union’s capacities in terms of disaster risk management taking an ‘all hazards’ approach, from response and recovery to disaster prevention.
In particular, special attention is being given to ensuring close coordination and consistency with actions carried out under other Union policies and instruments aiming in particular at preserving people’s lives, preventing and alleviating human suffering and protecting human dignity, including avoiding, minimising and addressing the adverse consequences of climate change.
Specifically important is the coordination with the new Union ‘EU4Health’ programme. Where the Union Mechanism will focus on the direct crisis response capacities which will have to be immediately ready and available in case of an emergency, the ‘EU4Health’ programme will include structural, large-scale reserves, including a reserve of ready medical staff and experts, and the underlying resilience of the health-care systems. Those resources will be crucial for a coordinated crisis response at Union level.
This proposal also provides the necessary budgetary resources to support Union actions in the field of civil protection, notably via a strengthened Union Mechanism. The latter contributes to the overarching objective of a ‘Europe that Protects’ as referred to in the Communication from the Commission to the European Parliament, the European Council and the Council on ‘a new, modern multiannual financial framework for a European Union that delivers efficiently on its priorities post-2020’. Under the new multiannual financial framework proposal, funding related to civil protection has been subsumed into one single heading: Heading 5 ‘Resilience, Security and Defence’. The specific cluster ‘Resilience and Crisis Response’, will encompass both the internal and external dimensions of civil protection.
No legislative act under other Union policies can currently achieve the objectives pursued by this proposal. There should therefore also be no overlap of actions in the field.
2. LEGAL BASIS, SUBSIDIARITY AND PROPORTIONALITY
·Legal basis
The legal basis for this proposal is Article 196 and Article 322(1)(a) of the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union.
·Subsidiarity (for non-exclusive competence)
The Commission has a supporting competence in the area of civil protection. Member States still bear the primary responsibility when it comes to preventing, preparing for and responding to disasters. The Union Mechanism was established because major disasters can overwhelm the response capacities of any Member State acting alone. The provision of well-coordinated and rapid mutual assistance amongst Member States is at its core.
The objectives of the proposal cannot be sufficiently achieved by the Member States acting on their own. Union action in this field involves managing situations with a strong trans-boundary and multi-country components, which necessarily require overall coordination and concerted action beyond the national level.
As shown by the COVID-19 outbreak, in case of serious emergencies where the European Union as a whole is concerned by the scale and the scope of the emergency, a collective, coordinated and urgent response is needed to avoid a fragmented approach which would limit the effectiveness of the Union response. Due to the pressing demands to mobilise resources in sufficient scale and deploy them across the Member States on the basis of their needs, it is necessary that the Union acts in cooperation with Member States. The global dimension and the effects of these emergencies indeed require a coordinated action, which ensures the rapid and effective mitigation of disasters, alongside with the prevention of their resurgence.
Taking into account the benefits in terms of reducing the loss of human life, environmental, economic and material damage as well as social impact, the proposal brings clear EU added value.
·Proportionality
The proposal does not go beyond what is necessary to achieve the objectives. It addresses gaps that have been identified since the adoption of Decision (EU) 2019/420 of the European Parliament and the Council amending Decision No 1313/2013/EU on a Union Civil Protection Mechanism and proposes solutions in line with the mandate given by the Council and the European Parliament.
The administrative burden for the Union and the Member States is limited and does not go beyond what is necessary to achieve the objectives of the proposal.
·Choice of the instrument
Proposal for a Decision amending Decision No 1313/2013 of the European Parliament and of the Council on a Union Civil Protection Mechanism.
3. RESULTS OF EX-POST EVALUATIONS, STAKEHOLDER CONSULTATIONS AND IMPACT ASSESSMENTS
·Stakeholder consultations
Due to the urgency to prepare the proposal so that it can be adopted on time by the Council, a stakeholder consultation could not be carried out.
·Collection and use of expertise
Not relevant.
Contents
Due to the urgent nature of the proposal, no impact assessment was carried out. However, preliminary lessons learnt from the COVID-19 outbreak, identified in close cooperation with relevant stakeholders, both at national and Union level, have fed into the proposal, thus contributing to a thorough evaluation of the impact of the proposed policies.
·Regulatory fitness and simplification
The proposed amendments are targeted in scope and nature, balances Member States' interests, and are proportional to what is operationally required.
More generally, this proposal seeks to establish a more flexible system to ensure that response to disasters is agile and straightforward to apply, therefore ensuring Member States are able to access support and facilitation from the Union Mechanism when needed. For example, recent disasters have highlighted that the Union might not be sufficiently equipped for emergencies with wide-ranging impact affecting several Member States at the same time. In such circumstances, Member States, notwithstanding their intention to help, are not always able to offer assistance. In response to the global COVID-19 outbreak, more than 30 countries (10 Member States and Participating States of the Union Mechanism as well as more than 20 third countries) have requested assistance through the Union Mechanism. The Union Mechanism was not able to respond fully to a majority of requests for assistance received during the COVID-19 outbreak. Through this proposal, the Commission aims to deliver better and more efficient results in future situations of similar scale. In such cases of large scale high impact emergencies, the Union is unable to step in to fill these critical gaps as it requires the capacity, legal and financial instruments to also fulfil its supporting competence in the field of civil protection when Member States are under pressure simultaneously and cannot offer each other assistance. Even though the Commission immediately reacted to the outbreak by creating a Union medical stockpile, the first procurement was only launched some four weeks after the first confirmed cases of COVID-19 in Europe, as Member States were busy in dealing with the emergency and were not in a position to ensure a quick procurement and storage of rescEU capacities in Member State’s facilities.
In terms of simplification, it is important to consider that direct procurement of rescEU capacities by the Commission would, alongside allowing autonomous action at Union level, alleviate the financial and administrative burden on Member States which would not be required to directly acquire, rent or lease the relevant capacities, as is also the case during the COVID-19 outbreak. The new proposed modality would help the Commission save critical time and intervene more rapidly, bringing clear added value to the emergency response efforts laying out the foundation for a sustainable recovery.
Transport, logistics and communication are core elements of any major international assistance operation. The Commission would therefore wish to reinforce provisions in this area to ensure that the Union is able to react quickly to a crisis.
Adding indirect management as a mode of budget implementation would also facilitate budget implementation.
4. BUDGETARY IMPLICATIONS
The total budget allocated for the Union Civil Protection Mechanism amounts to EUR 3 455 902 000 (in current prices) for the 2021-2027 period.
1. EUR 1 268 282 000 shall derive from heading 5 “Resilience, Security and Defense” of the MFF 2021-2027 (new paragraph 1a in article 19)
2. EUR 2 187 620 000 shall be made available through the European Recovery Instrument based on empowerment provided in the new Own Resources Decision.
5. OTHER ELEMENTS
·Implementation plans and monitoring, evaluation and reporting arrangements
Article 34 of Decision No 1313/2013/EU on a Union Civil Protection Mechanism applies. It provides that actions receiving financial assistance shall be monitored regularly in order to follow their implementation. More general requirements for the Commission to evaluate the application of the Decision and submit interim and ex post evaluation reports, as well as a communication on implementation are also provided therein. Such evaluations should be based on the indicators provided for in Article 3 of the Decision.
·Detailed explanation of the specific provisions of the proposal
This proposal amends a limited number of articles of Decision No 1313/2013/EU in order to achieve the objectives set out in the explanatory memorandum (section 1).
The interdependency of Member States in terms of their ability to react early and rapidly to a developing emergency with trans-boundary impact has been clearly demonstrated by COVID-19. Such interdependencies are not limited to pandemics, but would apply to a range of large-scale disasters that could impact several Member States simultaneously. To address those interdependencies and ensure stronger preparedness at the Union level, reinforcement of collective work on disaster resilience and planning is necessary. To that end, the Commission proposes to work, in coordination with Member States, on the development of Union disaster resilience goals and scenario planning, including addressing the impacts of climate change on disaster risk.
To ensure that rescEU provides an adequate safety net for when Member State capacities are overwhelmed, the Commission should be in a position to directly procure rescEU capacities to ensure that a sufficient safety net of strategic assets can be constituted in order to support Member States in overwhelming situations such as a large-scale emergency. In doing so, the Commission will ensure consistency and complementarity between rescEU procurement and other Union action, such as the ‘EU4Health’ programme.
The availability of an adequate safety net of rescEU capacities will be achieved by funding strategic capacities as well as an inter-connected emergency information management infrastructure that can cater for any type of emergency, deployable under the auspices of the rescEU.
These strategic capacities will be supplementary to those of Member States and provide additional support where Member States are overwhelmed given the magnitude of an emergency. They should be strategically pre-positioned to ensure most effective geographic coverage in response to an emergency and should be accompanied by the necessary logistical, warehousing and transport capacity.
The warehousing of assistance and the transport capacity should be strategically interlinked to increase rapidness in the delivery and ensure the well-functioning of the supply chain.
The need for a more flexible system for response to large-scale emergencies has emerged as a clear lesson learnt from the COVID-19 outbreak. The effectiveness of the whole response mechanism would be maximised via the availability of additional capacities and more flexibility when it comes to deployability of rescEU resources – irrespectively of where the need for such assets arise.
The operational role of the Emergency Response Coordination Centre at the centre of a network of national crisis centres supporting the Union’s swift and effective response to a broad range of crises at home and around the world should be enhanced, in line with the conclusions of the March 2020 European Council. Without prejudice to existing sectoral early warning and alert systems and crisis response mechanisms, this is to be achieved via reinforcing links with other relevant EU-level entities involved in crisis management and by strengthening its monitoring and early warning functions.
Improving Union preparedness and allocating additional resources to the Union Mechanism is attained through an ambitious budget to reinforce the collective capacity of the Member States and the Union to respond to disasters and via a greater focus on prevention and on improving coherence with other key Union policies. Emergency response also requires appropriate flexibility for budget implementation and for the adoption of urgency measures in exceptional cases which require a rapid response.
This proposal envisages the deletion of Annex I, which currently establishes the relative percentages that each pillar of the Union Mechanism (prevention, preparedness and response) should receive in terms of funding from the overall financial envelope. As the COVID-19 outbreak has shown, the percentages outlined in Annex I do not appear to ensure sufficient flexibility so that the Union can achieve the objectives it has set. During an emergency, the percentages in Annex I lead to undue administrative burden and may limit the flexibility needed to adapt to the disaster needs in any given year. The need to invest in all phases of the disaster risk management cycle, prevention, preparedness and response is firmly embedded in the Union Mechanism and reinforced with this proposal.
As a result of the deletion of Annex I, current paragraphs 5 and 6 of Article 19 should also be deleted since they refer directly to the percentages mentioned in Annex I.
As a result, the proposal also amends Article 30 on the exercise of the delegation of powers conferred on the Commission. While the substance of the Article remains unchanged, the cross-references to Article 19 are removed. Article 30 has not been deleted in order to cater for the possibility to adopt delegated acts.