Directorate-General for European Civil Protection and Humanitarian Aid Operations
It aims to save and preserve life, prevent and alleviate human suffering and safeguard the integrity and dignity of populations affected by natural disasters and man-made crises.
[1] Since September 2019, Janez Lenarčič is serving as Commissioner for Crisis Management in the Von der leyen commission, and since 1 March 2023,[2] Maciej Popowski leads the organisation as the Director-General.
[4] Together with its Member States, DG ECHO is a leading humanitarian donor, allocating funding to millions of crisis-affected people in more than 80 countries.
[8] In addition to providing funding to humanitarian aid, DG ECHO is also in charge of the EU Civil Protection Mechanism [9] to coordinate the response to disasters in Europe and beyond and contributes to at least 75% of the transport and/or operational costs of deployments.
[11] DG ECHO's mandate is to provide emergency assistance and relief (in the form of goods and services) to victims of conflict and natural or man-made disasters outside the EU.
Its civil protection mandate also extends to disaster prevention and preparedness actions, response and post-crisis operations inside the EU and worldwide.
As defined in article 214 TFEU, the EU's operations in the field of humanitarian aid are intended to provide ad hoc assistance and relief for people in third countries who are victims of natural or man-made disasters.
In line with the principle of subsidiarity, the primary responsibility to protecting people, property and the environment, including cultural heritage, lies with the Member States.
Through the Copernicus Emergency Management Service, the Centre can make use of high resolution satellite maps to monitor events before they happen, and to assess their impact once they have hit an area.
[27] Humanitarian needs kept increasing due to complex crises – often causing massive population displacement – as well as to disasters and epidemic outbreaks.
Against this background, DG ECHO has remained a leading humanitarian donor, allocating EUR 2.4 billion to millions of crisis-affected people in more than 80 countries.
To address the growing humanitarian funding gap, DG ECHO continued promoting the implementation of the Grand Bargain commitments, notably in relation to multi-sectoral joint needs assessment.
The EU also focused on supporting populations in "forgotten crises”, such as in the Central African Republic, Sudan, Pakistan, Colombia, Venezuela, Haiti, and the Philippines.
Every year, DG ECHO develops a set of priorities in order to co-ordinate its activities efficiently and in an impartial, needs-based approach.
[33] The Commission passed new legislation in 2013 on the EU Civil Protection Mechanism which provides better coordination and support to improve effectiveness of prevention, preparation, and response systems during disasters.
The legislation establishes a voluntary pool of pre-committed response capacities and materials, a training network for first responders, and a new approach for disaster risk management from 31 participating states.
The most recent uses of the Civil Protection mechanism occurred during flooding in Bosnia and Herzegovina and Serbia in 2014[35] and evacuating EU nationals during the COVID-19 pandemic.
As well as summarising the historical and current provision within DG-ECHO and elsewhere, the advice recommends "that existing and future legislation and instruments should be integrated in a framework that is capable of dealing with increasingly systemic and large-scale crises in a structural way".
