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EU considers creating disaster reaction force

BRUSSELS: The European Union is considering setting up an international reaction force able to deal with disasters such as the Asian tsunamis. Such a crisis management corps could be made up of about 5,000 experts identified beforehand by national governments, trained together and placed under central co-ordination in an emergency, the EU’s external relations Commissioner said. “I would like to see the EU rapidly developing the capacity to deploy experts, with rapid reaction teams in disaster relief, fire-fighting, emergency reconstruction, on standby,” Benita Ferrero-Waldner told the Financial Times in an interview. “We should do it as early as possible,” she said, adding it “would be great” if the corps could be ready by 2007. French Foreign Minister Michel Barnier said there was a need for a humanitarian equivalent of the United Nations ‘blue helmets’ peacekeeping forces. This European or international civil protection force, dubbed ‘red helmets’, would group and coordinate existing resources, he told Europe 1 radio. reuters

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