The Union Civil Protection Mechanism and positioning of the Republic of Serbia within the framework of European civil protection

Abstract

The main goal of this paper is to present the structure, functioning and organization of the Union Civil Protection Mechanism, considering various aspects of international cooperation in the field of emergency management provided by the European civil protection system, and analysis of parallel processes, challenges and possible directions of development arising from the participation of the Republic of Serbia in this program of the European Union intended to strengthen cooperation in the field of emergency management. Starting from the understanding that international cooperation is an important segment of the disaster risk reduction and emergency management system, which encourages and supports the process of developing national technical capacities at the same time strengthening human resources, a quantitative and qualitative approach is used to consider the existing level of cooperation, and to hypothetically analyze how the higher intensity of cooperation could maximize the effects arising from the participation of the Republic of Serbia in the Union Civil Protection Mechanism. The expected result refers to summarizing open issues, but also open opportunities provided by the Mechanism, with insight into existing processes and activities independently implemented and as a national contact point in accordance with its competencies at the inter-institutional level coordinated by the Sector for Emergency Management of the Ministry of the Interior.