Union Civil Protection Mechanism

PURPOSE: to allow Member States to continue to benefit from EU financing to lease firefighting planes and helicopters, until a future, permanent EU firefighting fleet becomes operational.

LEGISLATIVE ACT: Decision (EU) 2023/2671 of the European Parliament and of the Council amending Decision No 1313/2013/EU to extend the rescEU transitional period.

CONTENT: in 2019, rescEU was set up as a European civil protection capability reserve to help Member States protect citizens when existing response capabilities are overwhelmed by disasters such as forest fires. These rescEU capabilities will include a fleet of fire-fighting planes and helicopters.

With rising temperatures and prolonged periods of drought, the risk of wildfires in the Union is increasing and the wildfires are becoming more frequent and more intense. The limited availability of specialised response capacities, including amphibious aerial forest firefighting capacities, remains a major concern and constitutes the Union’s main operational challenge when confronting simultaneous wildfires.

To ensure a smooth transition until the Rescue EU fire-fighting fleet is fully operational, the Commission may, for a transitional period until 1 January 2025, provide funding to Member States for the leasing of fire-fighting aircraft.

This Decision extends, until the end of 2027, the transitional period referred to in Article 35 of Decision No 1313/2013/EU on the Union's Civil Protection Mechanism (EUCPM) in order to allow Member States to continue to benefit from EU funding to lease fire-fighting planes and helicopters until a future permanent EU fire-fighting fleet becomes operational.

ENTRY INTO FORCE: 18.12.2023.