FantasticSearch

1. A European Civil Protection Pool shall be established. It shall consist of a pool of voluntarily pre-committed response capacities of the Member States and include modules, other response capacities and categories of experts.

1a. The assistance provided by a Member State through the European Civil Protection Pool shall be complementary to existing capacities in the requesting Member State, without prejudice to the primary responsibility of Member States for disaster prevention and response on their territory.

2. On the basis of identified risks, overall capacities and gaps and any existing scenario-building as referred to in Article 10(1), the Commission shall, by means of implementing acts, define the types and specify the number of key response capacities required for the European Civil Protection Pool (‘capacity goals’). Those implementing acts shall be adopted in accordance with the examination procedure referred to in Article 33(2).

The Commission, in cooperation with the Member States, shall monitor progress towards the capacity goals set out in the implementing acts referred to in the first subparagraph of this paragraph, and identify potentially significant response capacity gaps in the European Civil Protection Pool. Where such gaps have been identified, the Commission shall examine whether the necessary capacities are available to the Member States outside the European Civil Protection Pool. The Commission shall encourage Member States to address significant response capacity gaps in the European Civil Protection Pool. It may support Member States in this regard in accordance with Article 20 and point (i) of Article 21(1) and Article 21(2).

3. The Commission shall define quality requirements for the response capacities that Member States commit to the European Civil Protection Pool ◄ . The quality requirements shall be based on established international standards, where such standards already exist. The Member States shall be responsible for ensuring the quality of their response capacities.

4. The Commission shall establish and manage a process for certification and registration of the response capacities that the Member States make available to the European Civil Protection Pool ◄ .

5. Member States shall on a voluntary basis identify and register the response capacities which they commit to the European Civil Protection Pool ◄ . The registration of multinational modules provided by two or more Member States shall be undertaken jointly by all the Member States concerned.

6. The response capacities that Member States make available for the European Civil Protection Pool ◄ shall remain available for national purposes at all times.

7. Response capacities that Member States make available for the European Civil Protection Pool ◄ shall be available for response operations under the Union Mechanism following a request for assistance through the ERCC. The ultimate decision on their deployment shall be taken by the Member States which registered the response capacity concerned. When domestic emergencies, force majeure or, in exceptional cases, serious reasons prevent a Member State from making those response capacities available in a specific disaster, that Member State shall inform the Commission as soon as possible by referring to this Article.

8. In the event of deployment, Member States' response capacities shall remain under their command and control and can be withdrawn when domestic emergencies, force majeure or, in exceptional cases, serious reasons prevent a Member State from keeping those response capacities available, in consultation with the Commission. The coordination among the different response capacities shall be facilitated where appropriate by the Commission through the ERCC in accordance with Articles 15 and 16.

9. Member States and the Commission shall ensure an appropriate public awareness of the interventions involving the European Civil Protection Pool ◄ .