Calls for proposals 2010
Info Day 26 March 2010: On 26 March 2010, Directorate-General ECHO of the European Commission (Civil Protection Unit – Disaster response) held an Information Day in Brussels (Belgium) on the 2010 calls under the Preparatory Action on an EU rapid response capability.

Preparatory Action 2010

Call for Proposals for a Preparatory Action on an EU rapid Response capability

Objectives

This year, the Budgetary Authority renewed for the third and last year the Preparatory Action on an EU Rapid Response Capability designed to respond immediately to critical needs arising from major disasters for an amount of € 7 500 000.

The Commission adopted on 8 March Commission Decision C(2010)1206 on the annual work programme for the actions to be financed in 2010 in the framework of a Preparatory Action on an EU rapid response capabilities, which defines the actions to be implemented through this Preparatory Action, including the present call for proposals.

The aim of the Preparatory Action is to test innovative arrangements ensuring that key resources and essential equipment are made available during relevant periods and that they are deployed to respond to disasters in the framework of the Community Mechanism for Civil Protection (the Mechanism) at the request of the Monitoring and Information Centre (MIC) of the European Commission. It covers any type of natural or man-made disaster and is intended to enhance the Community's collective preparedness for major disasters world-wide.

Publication

The Call for Proposals published in the Official Journal of the European Union, (2010/C 64) on 16 March 2010 resulted in the submission of 14 proposals. The following five projects have been approved and will be co-financed by the EU for a total funding of nearly 7 million Euros.

All five projects must be implemented between 1st June 2010 and 31 May 2012 and consist in the deployment of on-site dedicated civil protection modules composed of key resources and equipment. The objective is to test arrangements on Member States' capacities on standby for the EU operations, as well as the EU-funded assets in the field of civil protection. All the projects envisage deployments in real-life emergencies.

The following projects have been selected for EU funding:

Title	Objective
EUFFTR 2010 (led by Ministère de l'Intérieur, direction de la sécurité civile, France)	Module: EU-level aerial forest fire fighting module
Development of Rapid Highly specialized Operative Units for structural evaluation of stability of buildings (led by Dipartimento della Protezione Civile, Italy)	Module: Seismic module (new module)
Establishment of multinational flood response capability (Estonian Rescue Board together with civil protection authorities of Latvia and Lithuania)	Module: Enhancement of the high capacity pumping module financed under the preparatory action 2008 call.
Emergency Temporary Shelter – Camp support unit (led by Swedish Civil contingencies Agency, Sweden; associated beneficiary: Germany)	Module: Camp support unit - extension of emergency temporary shelter module financed under preparatory action 2009 call.
Cold Condition Module II for the EU Community Mechanism (led by the Crisis Management Centre Finland, Finland)	Module: Further upgrade of search and rescue module in cold conditions (extension and expansion of module financed under preparatory action 2009 call).