13/10/2006
EU assistance to Lebanon switches from oil spill emergency to infrastructure and environmental rehabilitation

The Monitoring and Information Centre of the EU's Civil Protection Mechanism, known as the MIC, has closed its operations in Lebanon after 65 days of assistance in cleaning up oil spills.

The oil spills were a result of the military conflict between Israel and Lebanon in July and August 2006. Virtually all the oil which had spilled into the Mediterranean and polluted the Lebanese coast during the conflict has been recovered. The oil spill experts sent by the MIC were seconded by Danish experts. Essential cleaning equipment was sent by Norway, France, Finland, Spain and Cyprus via the MIC. The MIC closely cooperated with the Regional Marine Pollution Emergency Response Centre for the Mediterranean (REMPEC), various UN agencies and the Ministry for Environment of Lebanon.

Now that the emergency phase is over, rehabilitation can begin. To this end, the Commission recently adopted an exceptional complement of €10 million to the MEDA 2006 assistance programme for Lebanon to repair the infrastructure and rehabilitate the environment.

The MIC is at the centre of the EU's Civil Protection Mechanism, which coordinates the civil protection response of 30 countries in the face of disasters both within and outside the EU. So far in 2006, the Mechanism has been set in motion to deal with the floods in Central and Eastern Europe, the earthquake in Indonesia and the forest fires in Spain. In previous years, it coordinated Europe's response to the tsunami in South-East Asia, hurricane Katrina in the US, the earthquake in Pakistan, forest fires in Portugal and floods in Romania and Bulgaria.