Brussels - European Union member states must create a rapid reaction force to fight emergencies such as the forest fires that have ravaged Southern Europe, the EU's environment chief said Tuesday. A permanent European force must be set up with a few main units available and ready to intervene in cases of emergency at any time, EU Environment Commissioner Stavros Dimas said.
In the case of forest fires, at least 10 fighting aircraft should be on standby to ensure "a credible European response," Dimas said.
Currently, the EU's 27 member states plus Iceland, Liechtenstein, and Norway pool resources that can be made available to disaster- stricken countries all over the world.
Since the end of June, the EU-coordinated pool has dealt with about eight requests to help combat the forest fires raging across Southern Europe. Countries that received support include Greece, Cyprus, Italy, Bulgaria and EU candidate country Macedonia.
"The catastrophic fires that destroyed millions of hectares of forestry could be tackled only with the assistance of the European partners," Dimas said, adding: "It is now time to enhance this mechanism, so that in the future we can be even more efficient."
