EU Civil Protection Celebrates 20th Anniversary of Helping People

The European Union celebrates the 20th anniversary of the EU Civil Protection Mechanism, which has been activated more than 500 times to coordinate assistance to those affected by natural disasters and other crises in Europe and worldwide. This included millions of medical supplies during the COVID-19 pandemic, to sending emergency items after earthquakes and floods.
Since its establishment in 2001, some of the largest operations were as follows: The floods in Bosnia and Herzegovina in 2014 – the EU’s largest response operation, in which 30 response units were deployed. Tropical Cyclone Idai in Mozambique in 2019 – the EU’s largest response operation with the deployment of four emergency medical teams in a single operation. The Mediterranean forest fire season in 2021 – the EU’s largest forest fire response operation, which includes sending firefighting planes, helicopters, drones, and ground firefighting teams. The largest repatriation of EU citizens for COVID-19 in 2020 – the EU funded more than 400 repatriation flights to return home more than 100,000 Europeans and their family members from 85 different countries worldwide. The year with the highest number of activations was 2020 – the EU Civil Protection Mechanism was activated 102 times in 2020 alone.