The Commission has reduced “civil protection” aid to Haiti

(BRUSSELS2) The figure for the number of civil protection personnel mentioned by the European Commission in its latest "factsheet" on the earthquake in Haiti was false (683 civil protection personnel sent by 23 EU countries and others *) . I had the intuition and had made a tweet on the issue. Because personally, I was already arriving at other figures: at least 800 men according to an assessment made during the weekend, more than 1200 according to my figures during the week. I have confirmation today.

"We were wrong"...

This is the result of an error, we will say to be nice, "technical", confirmed to me a specialist in the file: "not all staff have been taken into account". To err is human. But the problem: no erratum has been made. This is coupled with a "bureaucratic" error. The European Commission only takes into account in its figures the numbers that were reported to it in the framework of the civil protection mechanism Not all the personnel sent by the Member States for relief (**) Result: certain civil security and emergency relief units, the
soldiers engaged in support, security, transport or care missions are not taken into account... It may take a moment to stop these quarrels. And that the European Union be able to provide us with a complete report, quickly, and updated regularly, without having to check it with a magnifying glass. This is one of the big failures of this European operation: communication.

+/- 2000 personnel sent to Haiti, why not say so?

Today, according to my figures, the personnel involved in civil protection, military and health services reach or even exceed 2000 men, with a french effort notable since nearly 1300 men and women are engaged in Haiti. But it's not just the French: Dutch and Spaniards are also very present. And smaller countries, like Slovakia for example, also provide a proportionately significant effort. To be complete: 5 ships and more than thirty aircraft are engaged. About twenty European experts have been deployed (15 from Echo and 7 from the "civil protection" team). So! It's a shame not to say so...

(*) The EU uses this term more than that of "civil security" more used at the French level.
(**) And I count only the personnel sent by States, under civil protection or emergency relief, not those sent by NGOs.

photo: European experts with the plane of the Belgian Air Force (in Haiti)