The European Commission has allocated 2.3 million euros from the European Union Solidarity Fund to help Cyprus recover from the massive forest fires that broke out in Limassol and Paphos in July, Raffaele Fitto, Executive Vice President of the Commission for Cohesion and Reform, announced on Saturday.

He wrote in a message on social media that the amount would be used for “emergency operations, infrastructure, housing, and reconstruction.”

Two forest fires broke out simultaneously in July: a fire in the Limassol area claimed the lives of two people, burned an area of 124 square kilometers and destroyed more than 700 buildings.

Earlier this year, Cypriot members of the European Parliament demanded additional EU assistance to the island and the entire bloc in fighting future forest fires. The representative of the Akel party, Giorgos Georgiou, sharply criticized the speech of the EU Commissioner for Crisis Management, Hajiya Lahbib, on the issue of forest fires.

“I’ve heard you use the word “must” 10 times and the word “must” 20 times in your speech. The fires that have engulfed Europe this year have proved that austerity policies are catastrophic,” he said before turning to the issue of Cyprus.

“Unfortunately, Cyprus is leading — and in a negative way — in terms of the share of territory burned over the past decade.… We did not see your solidarity. We requested two planes from Spain, which three months later have not yet arrived,” he said.

He stated that the EU’s joint fire fighting and rescue operations mechanism, known as rescEU, “exacerbates resource shortages in EU countries by recycling limited resources.”

Party spokesman ELAM Giadis Giadis also criticized the rescEU mechanism, saying it had “left Europe, from Spain to Cyprus, at the mercy of the fiery elements” before outlining his proposal to improve the EU’s response to wildfires.

The next day, European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen announced that the commission intends to propose the creation of a new European fire control center in Cyprus.

“This summer, we all saw footage of forests and villages burning in Europe… the scale of the damage is enormous. And we know that this is not an isolated case. Climate change is making every summer hotter, harsher and more dangerous,” she said in a September address on the state of the European Union.

For this reason, she said, “we will propose the creation of a new European fire control center in Cyprus, which will also be able to support our regional neighbors.”

President Nicos Christodoulides called the proposal “important” and “extremely significant.”

The EU Solidarity Fund was established in 2002 to provide financial support to regions affected by natural disasters in the EU Member States and candidate countries. States can access financing if the estimated cost of the disaster is more than 3 billion euros, or 0.6% of their gross national income.

https://russiancyprus.news/news/society/eu-to-pay-e2-3m-to-help-cyprus-recover-from-wildfires/