Middle East: two EU aircraft bring home 356 European citizens

Brussels – Two repatriation flights, organised and funded by the European Commission through the Emergency Response and Coordination Centre (ERCC), brought 356 EU citizens stranded in the Middle East due to the crisis in the region back to Romania today (9 March). The planes took off from Oman, the Gulf country from which the majority of the Old Continent’s charter flights are departing. “When a crisis strikes, Europe is there for its citizens. When individual countries’ capacities reach their limits, the EU steps in with strong support,” stated the Commissioner for Equality, Preparedness and Crisis Management, Hadja Lahbib. 

Today’s operation took place within the framework of the EU Civil Protection Mechanism (UPCM), a system that has been in place since 2001 to coordinate the response to disasters and emergencies (both natural and man-made) when they exceed the response capabilities of individual Member States: if a country does not have sufficient material and organisational resources to manage a given crisis situation, it can request the activation of the UPCM and obtain support from one or more of the other participating States. In missions such as the one organised today, the “standard“ version of the UPCM provides that transport is made available by national governments and that the Commission can cover a maximum of 75 per cent of the costs, and only if at least 30 per cent of passengers come from EU countries (or UPCM participants) other than the one that requested the activation of the Mechanism. 

Today’s flights, however, represent the first activation of the system rescEU, an enhanced version of the UPCM active since 2019, for consular repatriations. Under this mechanism, the Brussels executive itself provides the aircraft and covers 100 per cent of the transport costs. For these reasons, today’s press release from the Berlaymont Building describes the mission as “a milestone in the expansion of the EU’s civil protection tools.” 

Since the recent escalation in the Middle East began, the EU has helped organise 42 flights to bring home more than 4,100 European citizens who were stranded in the region. Further transfers are expected to take place in the coming days, with 23 countries requesting assistance from Brussels: Belgium, Bulgaria, the Czech Republic, Estonia, Ireland, France, Italy, Cyprus, Latvia, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Malta, the Netherlands, Austria, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Slovenia, Slovakia, Finland, Sweden, Bosnia and Herzegovina, and Montenegro.