Christos Stylianides, former EU-Commissioner and current Minister for Climate Crisis and Civil Protection of Greece, emphasized that “Greece supports this so important initiative of exchange of expertise between EU Member States“. This was his comment during the 2nd Day of the Study-Visit of the #NEMAUSUS Network in Greece.
NEMAUSUS – “Network of European Multihazard cApacities hUb of Scientifics Understanding and Sharing” is a Knowledge-Network funded by DG ECHO through the #UCPM – Union Civil Protection Mechanism. The project will define the preliminary settings of a European Centre of Expertise dedicated to Forest-fires / Wildfires. NEMAUSUS will design, develop and implement this wildland-and-forest-fires dedicated Centre-of-Expertise in the future, as a pilot project for the UCPM-KN as per “Connect, Share and Grow”. It will be open to all Member States and possibly to neighbourhood policy countries to contribute to capacity development and science for forest/wildfires. The Project is coordinated by the French Sécurité Civile. CERIDES has an integral contribution and crucial involvement.
The Study-Visit to Athens, Greece, was greatly liaised and facilitated by CERIDES-Director, Prof. George Boustras, and it comprised:
- a Field Visit to the premises of the Hellenic Special Unit for Disaster Response (ΕΜΑΚ) on Day-1 (7 February 2022);
- a Working Meeting (Day-2, 8 February 2022) with Greek Civil Protection stakeholders, such as the General Secretariat for Civil Protection (GSCP)’s Directorate of Emergency Response Planning, the GSCP’s Directorate of International Relations, the GSCP’s Expert Team on Producing the Forest Fire Risk Forecast Map, the European Center for Forest Fires, the Hellenic Fire Corps’ Directorate of Operations and National Coordination/ Operational and Crisis Management Center, as well as the General Directorate of Forest Environment of the Hellenic Ministry of Environment;
- a high-level meeting (Day-2, 8 February 2022) with the Greek Minister for Climate Crisis and Civil Protection, Mr. Christos Stylianides; and
- a scientific/ academic meeting (Day-3, 9 February 2022) with stakeholders from Universities and Research Institutes, such as the National Observatory of Athens, the National Technical University of Athens, the Agricultural University of Athens, and the Technical University of Crete.
