In the event of a disaster, either within or outside the European Union, the Commission supports Member States and Participating States of the Union Civil Protection Mechanism (UCPM) by co-financing transport and operational costs (see Commission Decision 1313/2013/EU). Examples consist of the mobilisation of equipment and personnel deployed in humanitarian crises and natural disasters, such as aircrafts to help fighting forest fires.
The first step in the transport and operations co-financing procedure is to notify all Member States and Participating States about the need for transport and operations support. This should be done by sending to the ERCC the "Part A" document following the template presented in Annex VIII of the implementing rules. The ERCC will immediately notify all competent authorities.
Remember that only upon this notification the requested transport and operations support could become eligible for Union co-financing. Consequently this step should be done before the operation starts.
Funding available
Procedures to apply for Commission co-financing (in short a grant for transport and operations) have now been simplified to allow for a more rapid response to disaster. To apply for co-financing of transport and operational costs please follow these steps:
1. Grant Application:
The grant application needs to be submitted at the latest 15 days after the start of the operation, but always before the end of the operation. At this stage, the application does not require a signature from the Member State or Participating State representative.
2. Preparing the Grant Agreement
The Commission starts to assess the grant application.
Once the Commission has agreed on co-financing of transport and operational costs the applicant State will receive the following documents (in hard copy) for signature:
- the special conditions of the Grant Agreement
All remaining annexes to the Grant Agreement (i.e. Annex II – General Conditions, Annex IV – Model technical report, Annex V – Model financial statement and payment request) and the full template of the grant agreement are available in CECIS in the section 'Administrative/Documents'.
3. Signing the Grant Agreement
At the stage of the grant agreement signature, please return the signed documents to the Commission's Emergency Response Coordination Centre (ERCC). Note that – although not physically attached to the grant agreement – all remaining annexes are considered as integral part of the agreement and need to be used at final reporting stage.
The signed grant application forms, reports, invoices, and any other document requested can be submitted electronically to our functional mailbox ECHO-TRANSPORT-COFINANCINGec [dot] europa [dot] eu (ECHO-TRANSPORT-COFINANCING[at]ec[dot]europa[dot]eu)
We kindly request to include the following information in the subject of your e-mail:
REFERENCE NUMBER OF TRANSPORT GRANT – FINAL PAYMENT REQUEST – CRISIS – YEAR.
Further questions related to the grant application procedure for transport co-financing, please direct to: ECHO-TRANSPORT-COFINANCINGec [dot] europa [dot] eu (ECHO-TRANSPORT-COFINANCING[at]ec[dot]europa[dot]eu)
Picture: Two European Union funded amphibious firefighting planes (part of the European Union Forest Fires Tactical Reserve - EUFFTR project) on a training flight together with a French firefighting aircraft. © European Union / French Civil Protection