Brussels, 25 March 2024
The Commission is financing the purchase of new firefighting planes to increase the aerial firefighting capacity of rescEU, the EU Civil Protection Mechanism’s strategic crisis response reserve. €600 million in EU funds will be used to purchase 12 new planes, which will be hosted across 6 EU Member States: Croatia, France, Italy, Greece, Portugal, and Spain.
These planes will be used to extinguish fires across the European Union, in particular during the difficult summer months when lives, homes and livelihoods are coming increasingly under threat to large scale forest fires.
The announcement comes as Commissioner for Crisis Management, Janez Lenarčič, participated in Zagreb today in the signature ceremony of the agreement between the government of Croatia and the Canadian Commercial Corporation to purchase specialised firefighting aircraft. This, together with the signature of a similar agreement by the government of Greece recently, marks an important step in increasing the aerial firefighting capacity in the EU, protecting EU citizens from disasters.
Five years ago, the European Commission upgraded the EU Civil Protection Mechanism and created rescEU to further protect citizens from disasters and manage emerging risks. rescEU was established as a reserve of European capacities, and it includes a fleet of firefighting planes and helicopters. rescEU is fully funded by the EU.
The press release is available online.
Source – EU Commission