CECIS: COBACORE on EU level?

22nd January 2014

The Common Emergency Communication and Information System (CECIS) has been developed by the EU under the EU Civil Protection Mechanism. CECIS facilitates communication between the ERCC with National Authorities, making response to disasters faster and more effective. Its main task is to host a database on potentially available assets for assistance, to handle requests for assistance on the basis of these data, to exchange information and to document all action and message traffic.

From the state of the art analysis that is currently being performed within WP1; the research team is finding various systems from governmental and international bodies that help to facilitate disaster information flows. Although each system has its own pros and cons, the setup of CECIS is particularly interesting as it seems to be a marketplace for governments to exchange aid assets that help to prepare and provide response capacity prior and during a disaster. The civil protection mechanism in general, is moving from disaster response to disaster prevention and the CECIS system illustrates this shift as well: the system is not only active when a disaster takes place, but is running 24/7 as a marketplace for EU member states. An overview of civil protection mechanism activations over the last year can be found here.