What is it?
The Emergency Support Instrument (ESI) enables the EU to support its Member States when a crisis reaches unprecedented scale and impact, with wide-ranging consequences on the lives of citizens.
From April 2020 to January 2022, the Emergency Support Instrument was activated – for the second time after its creation in 2016 – to help EU countries address the COVID-19 pandemic.
The COVID-19 pandemic led to a large-scale loss of life in the European Union and caused untold hardship for citizens.
The EU has never faced a health crisis of a similar scale in its history, nor one spreading at this speed. Addressing this exceptional situation effectively required a coordinated strategy of different measures to save lives and prevent and alleviate human suffering.
Why is this important?
Solidarity is a fundamental EU value, and the Emergency Support Instrument demonstrates it in practice. It allows the EU to rapidly address the human and economic consequences of a crisis and fund actions that make a difference on the ground.
The Emergency Support Instrument is a flexible tool designed to respond to different types of evolving needs. EU countries can use it when they require immediate support in addressing a crisis, for crisis prevention, and during recovery.
This tool aims at enhancing existing EU programmes and instruments, including rescEU and the Joint Procurement Procedure, and to complement ongoing efforts at national level. ESI provides fast and targeted actions to support Member States in extraordinary circumstances.
It also focuses on actions with a clear benefit at the EU level. The Emergency Support Instrument can respond proactively, mobilising resources and deploying them across Member States based on needs.
How are we helping?
In the context of the COVID-19 pandemic, the EU allocated €2.7 billion to support its Member States.
Part of the total ESI funding was allocated to the Mobility Package. It covered 3 actions:
- cargo transport of medical items, COVID-19 vaccination-related equipment and therapeutics to the EU from third countries and within the EU
- transfer of patients within the EU and from the EU to third countries
- transport of medical personnel and teams within the EU and into the EU from third countries, and operational support for mobile medical response capacities.
This allowed the EU to finance up to 100% of the eligible costs of these transport operations.
Previous activations
The Emergency Support Instrument was created and activated for the first time in 2016 in the context of the Syria crisis. It was used to support Greece in managing the influx of refugees and migrants.
Between 2016 and 2019, ESI funded 29 projects in Greece, for a total of €643.6 million. A summary of interventions and achievements of this activation can be found in the final evaluation.
Last updated: 25/01/2023
Facts & figures
From April 2020 to January 2022, the EU awarded:
- more than €164 million to Member States for cargo operations
- €9 million for the transport of medical teams and transfer of patients.
More than 2,000 operations via air, land or sea to transport
Transported medical equipment and approximately 515 health workers and 135 patients.