Last year the European Commission adopted the European Union Civil Protection Mechanism, dedicated to the responses of institutions and the Member States in the event of natural disasters. At the July plenary session of the Committee of Regions, the members approved the opinion of Mr Adam Banaszak (PL, Regional Councillor Kujawsko-Pomorskie ) on this issue. In his opinion he points out that local and regional authorities are usually key participants in the management of crisis situations and thus it would be appropriate to involve them in preparing risk assessment and risk management plans and he also welcomes the actual transformation from a reactive and ad hoc approach to a more integrated, effective and improved mechanism.

"I took to drafting this opinion, because combining forces are often easier and quicker to respond to unexpected crises. I believe that in future civil protection mechanism, local and regional authorities will be willing to use pre-planned and predictable EU ETS. The Committee of the Regions have to emphasises the need for greater precision in the definitions set out in the decision and regarding requests for help in reacting to actual and imminent major disasters. I feel that a standard model should be used as a basis for risk management plans to ensure the comparability of their content and a schedule must be established for Member States to regularly update and submit risk management plans"- said Adam Banaszak.