Earthquake damage on the island of Samos and elsewhere in Greece

Subject: Earthquake damage on the island of Samos and elsewhere in Greece

The island of Samos has been rocked by a powerful earthquake with a magnitude of 6.7 on the Richter scale, leaving two children dead and many injured and causing incalculable damage and destruction. This is just the latest in a series of natural disasters affecting Greece in recent months.

According to initial estimates, dozens of buildings in residential areas on the island have collapsed and significant infrastructural damage has been sustained. Entire zones with buildings in danger of collapse following intense aftershocks have been cordoned off.

Greece is frequently affected by natural disasters. In the past three months alone, the Samos earthquake has been preceded by flooding in Evia and Thessaly has been ravaged by Hurricane Iano.

The European Solidarity Fund, should therefore be immediately deployed in conjunction, with all other EU instruments in a comprehensive bid to address the fallout from this chain of natural disasters.

In view of this,

will the Commission seek to deploy immediately all the mechanisms at its disposal and shorten the processing times for European Solidarity Fund applications, in a bid to assist the victims and comprehensively address the damage caused?

Joint answer given by Ms Ferreira on behalf of the European Commission (21 December 2020)

In the event of severe natural disasters, the EU Solidarity Fund (EUSF) may provide financial assistance to help cover the costs of public emergency and recovery operations. However, the EUSF can only be mobilised following an application from the Member State concerned, to be submitted within 12 weeks of the first occurrence of damage caused by the earthquake. (1)

Aid from the fund could be used for emergency operations to assist the affected population, temporary accommodation, the repair of damaged infrastructure, protection of the cultural heritage and cleaning-up operations. Private damage is not eligible.

However, the EUSF is not a rapid response instrument, its application and budgetary process can take several months to complete.

The EU Civil Protection Mechanism can coordinate and co-finance the deployment of teams or assets where the scale of a natural disaster overwhelms national capacities. As this consists of government-to-government assistance, the affected country must first request external assistance. In this instance, Greece did not request EU assistance.

⋅1∙ And demonstrating that the total direct damage exceeds either 0.6% of Greek gross national income or 1.5% of the average gross domestic product of the affected

region(s).

| | ( | | )The European Regional Development Fund (ERDF) can support actions promoting risk prevention and management, including disaster resilience and management systems.

In the 2014-2020 period, Greece’s programmes financed by the ERDF and the Cohesion Fund have earmarked some EUR 300 million for measures to reinforce civil protection and for the prevention and mitigation of natural disasters, including prevention and mitigation of earthquake.

It is up to the competent authorities of the Member States to design, select and implement the EU co-funded projects in line with the cohesion policy priorities and the strategy set out in the programmes for the 2014-2020 period.