Hardly a week passes without a disaster in the news. An earthquake kills 230,000 people in Haiti. Floods engulf one-fifth of Pakistan. An explosion at the Deepwater Horizon rig causes the largest oil spill in history. We are also vulnerable here in Europe – just think of the toxic mud spill in Hungary this month, the floods in central Europe this summer, or the shut-down of airspace caused by an Icelandic volcano this spring.

Such crises have increased both in frequency and in the damage they cause. Since 1975, their number has risen five times, and each year disasters affect 230 million people, claim 85,000 lives, and cause €70 billion worth of damage. The poorest countries are the hardest hit, but disasters cost us dearly in Europe too – over the past 20 years, they have killed nearly 90,000 Europeans and affected more than 29 million others. Climate change, population growth, intensified economic activity and terrorism will continue to feed the increase.

Together with the economic crisis and the resource crunch, these trends show it is high time for Europe to re-think its disaster response strategy, so that it can adapt to the scale of problems and to achieve the more successful and cost-effective outcomes that are made possible when EU countries work together.

National governments are primarily responsible for dealing with disasters, but calamities often exceed a government’s ability to cope. The EU can help address this challenge – it has both the experience and the expertise to co-ordinate the deployment of member states’ substantial resources. Through our ‘civil-protection mechanism’, we already help provide equipment and experts when asked for assistance. Additionally, as the world’s largest humanitarian aid donor, the EU has the means to provide essential disaster assistance abroad.

From prevention and preparedness to reaction, we need to act together to reduce our vulnerability to hazards. This is an obligation laid on us by the solidarity clause of the Treaty of Lisbon, through which member states committed themselves to assist each other in natural or man-made disasters on EU territory. This need has also been widely recog-nised by European citizens – some 90% of them expect the EU to do more to help their country in a crisis and to support victims of disasters in third countries.

On Tuesday (26 October), I proposed a number of ways to improve our disaster response and meet our citizens’ rising expectations. The goal is to guarantee the availability of important assets for immediate deployment. Our policy paper outlines a list of options, including:

? Developing reference scenarios for the main types of disasters inside and outside the EU;

? Defining the assets needed for credible responses to these scenarios;

? Identifying the assets that member states can share within the framework of an EU disaster response;

? Asking member states voluntarily to put core assets at the disposal of a European response;

? Making sure transportation logistics are in place for immediate deployment;

? Finally, tasking the European Commission with calling for the immediate deployment of these assets, and, in third countries, ensuring co-ordination on the ground.

These steps will not only improve our response to disasters; they will also allow for a more efficient and prudent use of member states’ existing capacities, without creating new, over-arching structures at additional expense. This bottom-up approach will ensure cost-efficiency and will avoid the needless duplication of structures and instruments that already work well.

My priority has been to integrate my proposals seamlessly into our broader strategic priorities. One example is the creation of a consolidated emergency response centre, which, through its links to situation-awareness arrangements, will contribute to the EU’s Internal Security Strategy, which aims to increase Europe’s overall resilience toward disasters. In addition, we aim to ensure that civilian and military crisis actions complement each other – to this end, working arrangements will be developed between the European Emergency Response Capacity and the European External Action Service. Legislative proposals will be made in 2011, for the practical implementation of these goals.

Our strategy aims to ensure the right type of help is in the right place at the right time – both inside the EU and around the world. The European response should be better co-ordinated, but also more visible – both to our citizens, and to those who receive our solidarity, financial support and expertise.

Kristalina Georgieva is the European commissioner for international co-operation, humanitarian aid and crisis response.

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