EU Civil Protection Pool
The Civil Protection Pool was established to advance European cooperation in civil protection and enable a faster, better-coordinated and more effective European response to man-made disasters and natural hazards.
The Pool brings together resources from 24 Member States and Participating States, ready for deployment to a disaster zone at short notice. These resources can be rescue or medical teams, experts, specialised equipment or transportation. Whenever a disaster strikes and a request for assistance via the EU Civil Protection Mechanism is received, assistance is drawn from this Pool.
Twenty-four Member States and Participating States have offered 110 specialised response capacities to the Pool. These resources are only deployed for response operations following a request for assistance via the EU Civil Protection Mechanism.
The Norwegian Emergency Medical Team (EMT) is certified as a response capacity under the Voluntary Pool. It was first deployed late 2019 when the government of Samoa declared a state of emergency in order to respond to the measles outbreak in the country, which mainly affected children. It was also deployed in 2020 to assist Italy in dealing with the Covid-19 outbreak.
Links
Norway sending medical team to Italy 2020 (news article)
Norway to provide assistance for response to measles outbreak in Samoa (2019) (news article)
Photo: NOR-EMT