Global Europe

The controversy surrounding the EU answer to Haiti humanitarian emergency has not yet taken the degree of evolution and the adequacy of the instruments of EU civil protection into proper consideration. Attention has mainly been paid on marginal questions such as the absence of Catherine Ashton from the scene of the disaster, or the weak visibility of European aid with respect to the US support. However, if we consider the current features of the European Community Civil Protection Mechanism, which was established in 2001, the European Union's performance should be assessed quite positively.

A large amount of EU financial resources (336 million Euro) has been engaged. The Monitoring and Information Centre (MIC), that is the CCPM's main operational tool, is coordinating the dispatch of men and goods from the Member States and sent a Civil Protection Team on the 14th of January. The High Representative chaired two Council meetings on Haiti and is directing the EU effort. The choice of working under the umbrella of the UN both on the level of civil protection and security (which avoids any possibility of a CSDP mission) has been reasonable against the massive dispatch of US troops and the need not to burden the military chain of command of the MINUSTAH mission. The dispatching by the Member States of at least 300 men from the European Gendarmerie Force to be put directly at the disposal of the United Nations, together with 6 military vessels, 15 helicopters and 30 planes under the coordination of a prompt cell at the Council Secretariat, shows a significant effort also on the military side.

On the other hand, what should be questioned is the adequacy of the current features of the European Civil Protection Mechanism and its instruments in case of natural disasters such as the earthquake in Haiti. It should also be noted that the new Treaty of Lisbon (while giving supplementary powers to the EU with respect to the Member States on civil protection, and while introducing, as part of the External Action objectives, that of "assist[ing] populations, countries and regions confronting natural or man-made disasters") explicitly foresees the establishment of a "European Voluntary Humanitarian Aid Corps", and gives the Commission the power to "take any useful initiative" in order to "enhance the efficiency" of Union and national measures of humanitarian aid.

The Tsunami experience in 2004 had already shown the strong limits of the EU action capacity. One year after that event, a study assigned to Michel Barnier by Barroso and the Austrian Presidency in office had put forward the creation of a European civil protection force (Europe aid), founded on a voluntary basis through the coordination of people and equipment from the Member States. The Barnier report had also agreed about the need to turn the MIC into a real Operation Centre, to acquire additional common capacities in terms of equipment and means of transport and to assess the possible complementary role of military resources in the European Union.

It was an ambitious proposal which did not cross the limits of a subsidiary and "bottom-up" approach and which respected the role and the prerogatives of the Member States. Notwithstanding this, the plan was not carried out and the Council passed a decision in November 2007 concerning the introduction of minor modifications to the system established in 2001, without undermining the gist of a light mechanism, the aim of which was just to sort out information and coordinate the actions of the Member States. The Commission must have been aware of the inadequacy of the 2007 reform, since it drew up a Communication on reinforcing the Union's disaster response capacity some months later. This Communication was partially similar to some aspects of the Barnier plan, but it was not put into practice.

As a result, we have a European Civil Protection Mechanism which has serious gaps both in terms of capacity utilisation of existing Member States' capabilities, and in terms of lack of other resources, such as temporary shelters, water purifiers, field hospitals and evacuation measures for European citizens. The persistence of these gaps is not due to simple bureaucratic laziness, but it depends on precise political reasons. In order to overcome these lacks, as indicated in a recent study commissioned by DG Environment, it would be necessary to turn the MIC into a real Operation Centre, to develop European skills together with those of the other Member States and to empower the Commission to mandate, in exceptional circumstances, the deployment of Member States' capacities – the so-called "mandatory solidarity".

These developments clash with the resistance of a number of Member States which are not willing to give the Union premises of operational management and common instruments, especially in a "sensitive" sector like civil protection, which has always been related to that of national security. It is no coincidence that a similar debate is taking place on the subject of the establishment of a centre for the operational planning of military missions in the framework of the Common Security and Defence Policy. But this is not a simple analogy: the two issues are closely linked, since humanitarian crises such as the Haiti earthquake inevitably require the joint deployment of logistic, operational, military and civilian instruments. This possible plot is likely to have contributed to repressing the reform of the European Civil Protection Mechanism.

Considering the weakness the Barroso Commission proved in the last few years, it is no surprise that, on a delicate question such as civil protection, there has been a lack of strong political initiative and autonomy with respect to the Council, which would have been necessary to surmount this impasse. After avoiding the scandal of an inadequate commissioner charged with facing the crisis – the Bulgarian Jeleva – the European Parliament should exercise all its prerogatives and put pressure on the new Commission and the new figures created by the Treaty of Lisbon in order to overcome a stalemate which has been lasting too long.