Fire fighters build up tomorrow’s civil protection in Europe.

On 7 and 8 March in Paris, for the first time ever in France, the French Fire Fighters Federation and the French CTIF National Committee welcomed fire fighters’ representatives from 25 European countries determined to find common ways of strengthening Europe’s civil protection capabilities, which will be proposed by France when it takes over the European Union Council Presidency in July 2008.

The severe and increasing catastrophes of the past years –forest fires in Greece, earthquake in Bolivia in 2007, floods in Eastern Europe, humanitarian crisis in Lebanon in 2006, tsunami in South-East Asia in 2004- demonstrated the need for a better-prepared European response to all sorts of crises and emergencies to strengthen the protection, aid and assistance provided to the populations in and outside of the European Union. While presiding over the EU and to achieve this objective, France will submit proposals to create a European civil protection force, following the recommendations made by Michel Barnier in his report "Europe Aid", aiming at pooling existing civil protection resources via the use of common scenarios, common training sessions and common exercises.

Fire fighters from all of the countries represented have already been very active in the field of international help. They will therefore have an essential role to play in a strengthened civil protection mechanism thanks to their huge human and material resources, but also thanks to their expertise and to the values they share in terms of involvement, commitment and solidarity. Fire fighters do represent a real community at the European level, yet each EU country’s fire and rescue service has its own national, or even regional, specificities (organisation, status, resources, missions, history) and preoccupations (finances, maintaining and developing volunteer fire fighting, evolution of fire brigades’ missions).

What vision of Europe do they share and which role do they exactly want to play within the European civil protection force? These questions –among others- were thoroughly debated all along the symposium, not only by fire fighters’ representatives themselves, but also by the highest representatives of the European Union and of the French Government, including Mr. Jacques Barrot, vice-president of the European Commission, and Mr. Michel Barnier, French Minister, who initiated the European civil protection force’s project.

“It is our aim” underlines the president of the FNSPF and of the French National Committee of CTIF Richard Vignon “to enhance the exchange of experience in order to better get to know the system of our neighbours and thus take information with us and find ways of improvement for our countries.” This is the idea of the round-table of the first day with the focus on volunteers. “There is no single one system of volunteer service but several. This means that the commitment of the citizens is implemented in different ways.” adds Richard Vignon. “But besides all of our differences it is the wish that unites us to give qualified help to our citizens.” 6 countries (France, UK, Germany, Austria, Czech Republic and Portugal) have presented their system of volunteer fire-fighters and also expressed their concern about the survival of this system.

For a Europe of Volunteers…

The summary is unanimous: Europe has difficulties to recruit and keep its 4 million volunteer fire-fighters who play an essential role in the protection of their fellow citizens. “The volunteer fire-fighters should not be forgotten in the construction of Europe and civil protection.” emphasized Jean-Marie Lincheneau General Secretary of the FNSPF. From Portugal with 99% volunteer fire fighters to Great-Britain which has no more than one thousand volunteers but 18.000 part-time fire fighters to Germany which has one million volunteers, all representatives explained their difficulties.

Dennis Davis, president of the British Fire Service Federation, explained that it is getting more and more difficult to find part-time fire fighters - a British specialty - which should be better known in Europe. According to his explanation it is the growing individualism of the citizens which makes the recruitment more difficult. Like many other speakers Jean-Marie Lincheneau pointed out the difficulties with the availability of fire-fighters during working hours. Employers are often reluctant to hire men or women who are absent to help with an accident or fight forest fires.

Laurent Wehrli, president of the Swiss Fire-Fighters Federation (115.000 volunteers and 1.200 professionals) suggests to make the fire service more attractive to young people and to officially recognise the professional qualifications that are acquired by volunteers. He proposed to pay an indemnity to the employers in case an employee goes on a call. Often it is the European Union that people look at, so the president of the Slovenian Fire Service Ernest Eöry demands a European directive to harmonize the different statutes of volunteer fire-fighters. … and better coordinated.

“The recent catastrophes in Europe like the forest fires in Greece or Portugal or the flooding in Eastern Europe show that the European countries do work together” explains Colonel Richard Vignon, “but we can do better than that” he adds. “The transfer of fire-fighters to incidents abroad is always very slow” deplored Colonel Vignon, “it is easy to mobilize personnel within 15 minutes, especially after earth-quakes, but it is so difficult to find airplanes to transport them. Finally one departs 72 hours later even though the first 72 hours are essential, because in this period it is possible to rescue most of the victims.”

Michel Barnier, former European commissioner, therefore came to personally defend his proposal of the creation of a European Civil Protection force. “We should not wait for new catastrophes to happen to take action,” he said and emphasised that “catastrophes like pandemics will come eventually because of the globalisation and climate change.” Agostino Miozzo, representing the1.200.000 fire and rescue service volunteers of Italy, calls for the European Union to better coordinate the means of the member states and thus facilitate the creation of special intervention modules. The representatives of the German and British Fire Services demanded that the European Union should first make use of special national services and also the structure available already through the UNO as well as bilateral agreements of European countries.

New Ideas

On March 5th the European Commission already published a document in which such a Civil Protection Force was suggested in order to improve the preparation measures of all member countries and non-EU member countries, a network of fast assistance. In a message of the minister of interior Michèle Alliot-Marie read by Henri Masse, Director of the Department Defense and Civil Protection of the ministry of interior, it was declared that France will “persue all actions to give an impulse to Civil Protection in Europe” during the French Presidency in the EU.

Madame Alliot-Marie also indicated that “everything will be done to provide Europe with means to react efficiently in face of great disasters” and proposed to establish a training facility for European training. “This would allow for a harmonized training of European personnel” and to improve the means of the European Monitoring and Information Center (MIC) in Brussels. These actions of the Euopean Commission and the first steps of France have been very well received by the majority of the representatives of European fire services.

For Colonel Vignon “the 6 months of the French presidency are a great opportunity to let voice of European fire fighters be heard. Besides the interesting results of this symposium we will do everything possible to explain the challenges of our sector to others and to advance our ideas on the highest political level in France and Europe. And we propose to you that in the future everyone of you does the same.” Against the background of the fruitful exchanges during the past two there is no doubt that the fire fighters of the 27 European countries and beyond are mobilized just like they take action day to day for their fellow citizens.

(source: www.pompiers.fr , with Agence France Presse)

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