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Abstract
In recent years the European Union has taken a number of steps towards improving civil protection cooperation in Europe. European leaders regularly declare the importance of boosting cooperation to prepare for and respond to disasters and emergencies afflicting member states. Those declarations have been accompanied by a flourish of policy activity, the building of new structures, and even treaty changes. On the surface, this little-known area of European integration appears to be proceeding with great success. A closer look, however, reveals significant gaps between member states' general expressions of enthusiasm and problematic cooperation in practice. We draw upon public goods theory to explain why this might be the case; more specifically, we identify likely game-theoretic obstacles to cooperation in different areas of the civil protection field. We evaluate our theoretical propositions by examining the current state of cooperation in marine pollution response, chemical contamination management, and flood response. We find that cooperation success in practice corresponds generally, but not perfectly, with the predictions of public goods theory. Our findings offer a nuanced view of civil protection cooperation in Europe and illuminate options for improved cooperation in the future.
Acknowledgements
The authors are grateful to Raphael Bossong for useful comments on previous drafts of this article and to Sara Norrevik for helpful editorial assistance.
Notes
1. References to ‘European Council’ in this article are shorthand for the Council of Ministers of the European Union, rather than the European Council body of heads of state and government.
2. Also see European Commission (Citation2003) which set the rules for implementation of the community mechanism.
3. By the end of 2003, 6,737 persons were registered in the database (Ekengren, et al. Citation2006, p. 461).
4. The more recent Commission proposal on strengthening EU civil protection attempts to increase the commitment on the use of such modules by setting up a voluntary ‘pool’ of assets that once registered are expected to be available for a ‘combined European response’ (Georgieva Citation2011).
5. The Lisbon Treaty's provisions on civil protection were boosted for a variety of reasons, not least because policy-makers had potential terrorist incidents in mind.
6. For more of an in-depth discussion on this as well as the 5-year history that precedes the Clause, see Ekengren, et al. (Citation2006) and Myrdal and Rhinard (Citation2010).
7. However, due to a number of technical and natural hurdles – such as weather conditions, the effectiveness of chemicals and difficulties in deploying booms and skimmers – few spills can be effectively contained at sea. This means that recovery programmes must also be activated to begin cleaning effected coastal areas that often rely on the efficient transfer of technical information such as the type of oil or chemical that is endangering the coastline (ITOPF Citation2010a). A similar process of response action is required for chemical spills in which logistics and communication is essential. More attention, however, is placed on timely responses in terms of towing damaged vessels to the nearest port (Bonn Agreement Citation2000) and monitoring the effect on the environment rather than clean-up.
8. Unlike surveillance for a pandemic outbreak, which is generated through a weakest link aggregation technology in which each country must do its part (see Rhinard Citation2009), surveillance for an oil spill is a different matter. The oil spill is initially easy to identify; the task is surveying its constitution and spread in the most effective way possible. This shows that surveillance for an oil spill requires a ‘single best shot’ aggregation technology from the cooperating partner best resourced for the task.
9. More specifically, this involves a ‘collective best shot’ where a group of countries (best resourced and most affected) bind together to produce the good in benefit to all.
10. That partner would then require some kind of financial reimbursement mechanism to ensure fairness.
11. Other areas of cooperation supported by EMSA include Human resources, legal and financial affairs, operations support, safety assessment and inspection, ship safety, marine environment and training and statistics.
12. The legal basis for the CleanSeaNet service is Directive 2005/35/EC on ship-source pollution and on the introduction of penalties, including criminal penalties, for pollution offences (as amended by Directive 2009/123/EC).
13. The MICs response to the 2002 prestige incident, for example, included the facilitation of specialised vessels, booms and skimmers and surveillance planes, the dissemination of satellite images and coordination between Spain, Portugal, and France (European Commission Citation2005). Other responses include the ‘Baltic Carrier’ incident in 2001 (Denmark) and the ‘Ievoli Sun’ incident in 2000 (France). Efforts outside of the Union have also been conducted such as the 2007 oil spill in South Korea, or the toxic spill on the Ivory Coast in 2006.
14. Note that the time between the establishment of EMSA and the publication of this report there has been no major marine pollution incidents in European waters (COWI Citation2008, p. 42). This means that the attitudes expressed are expectations of the EU's role rather that a review of activity.
15. A good example of this is the recent eco-toxicology assessment made by a team of experts, organised through the MIC, that were sent to monitor the mud pollution in Hungary (ECP Citation2011).
16. Proper identification of a chemical outbreak requires local authorities to have a sufficient degree of toxicology knowledge and analytical capacity, which could involve supranational authorities providing funding for capacity-building and developing shared analytical guidelines (US DHS Citation2006). Effective and swift decontamination, especially in the case of contagious or highly spreadable toxins, requires effective means for providing ‘surge capacity’ when it is needed most. This involves efficient sharing of resources and swift deployment from unaffected countries. Proper notification to neighbours, a third task of effective chemical contamination response, would benefit from a supranational system that is efficient, trusted, and reliable in transmitting information.
17. This is not relevant, however, in the sense that high capacity states who do not contribute are not penalised by exclusion.
18. If a surge capacity system was intergovernmental, reflecting a system that is used when member states want to use it, the good would still have the qualities above but the incentive structure would be a coordination rather than collaboration game. See Stein 1990.
19. RAS-CHEM has also been tested in a number of EU civil protection exercises, such as the 2006 ‘new watchman’, the 2008 ‘Aeolus’ and the 2011 ‘Iridium’ exercise.
20. In an effort to overcome some of these hurdles RAS-CHEM is continually being revised and will be complemented by the Chemical and Radiation Risk Assessment Network (CARRA NET) in the future.
21. In the period 1998–2005 Europe experiences over 100 major floods that incurred 700 deaths, cost approximately €25 billion and displaced roughly 500,000 people (Bachmann Citation2006).
22. The Floods Directive of 2007 instructs member states to achieve three consecutive goals: (1) undertake a preliminary flood risk assessment by 22 December 2011; prepare flood hazard maps by 22 December 2013 and establish flood risk management plans by 22 December 2015 (European Council Citation2007c).
23. The 2007 EU Floods Directive requires reporting in March 2012; at that time more information will become available about cooperation outcomes.
24. Of all modules registered (12) seven have been deployed between one and three times (European Commission Citation2011).
25. Indeed, the term ‘recovery’ is not mentioned once in the main documents establishing a community mechanism. Even the financial instrument is confined to the area of preparedness, prevention, and response. Recovery efforts are usually left to DG EuropeAid Development and Cooperation (Devco) rather than DG Humanitarian Aid (ECHO).
26. In its first 10 years of existence the fund – sourced from the EU budget – has been highly active in providing relief aid to 47 disasters to 22 member states with a total payment of approximately €2.4 billion (Europa Citation2011, European Council Citation2002). However, this figure represents only 24 per cent of the total amount that could have been used from the fund (based on a total annual amount of 1 billion). The reason for this is that member states have placed a high threshold for the activation of the fund (the disaster must have caused over €3 billion in damages or over 0.6% GNI).
27. It is interesting to note that adaption to climate change in increasingly placed in texts on EU flood risk cooperation as method of increasing motivation for cooperation (q.v. European Council Citation2011(21)).