30. Welcomes the Commission’s decision to merge the Monitoring and Information Centre (MIC) and ECHO humanitarian aid crisis room to create a genuine 24/7 Emergency Response Centre as a planning and operational coordination platform as a step in the right direction and calls for this also to be implemented in real-time cooperation by the Member States, in compliance with the principle of subsidiarity, in the areas of monitoring, issuing early-warnings and sounding the alarm; calls on the Commission to strengthen the Centre to enable it to serve as the central hub for prompt and effective coordination of all European in-kind assistance as well as financial humanitarian aid contributions; stipulates that it should ...[+++]function as the single entry point for requests for assistance related to all types of natural and man-made disasters in order to allow a coherent EU response;

30. Welcomes the Commission's decision to merge the Monitoring and Information Centre (MIC) and ECHO humanitarian aid crisis room to create a genuine 24/7 Emergency Response Centre as a planning and operational coordination platform as a step in the right direction and calls for this also to be implemented in real-time cooperation by the Member States, in compliance with the principle of subsidiarity, in the areas of monitoring, issuing early-warnings and sounding the alarm; calls on the Commission to strengthen the Centre to enable it to serve as the central hub for prompt and effective coordination of all European in-kind assistance as well as financial humanitarian aid contributions; stipulates that it should ...[+++]function as the single entry point for requests for assistance related to all types of natural and man-made disasters in order to allow a coherent EU response;

§ in a second stage, at the latest 12 months after the adoption of the necessary specifications for a priority action, the Commission is to present a proposal, where appropriate, to the European Parliament and the Council in accordance with Article 294 of the TFEU, on the deployment of that priority action.

The strengthening of DG ECHO's operational and contractual procedures applicable to its implementing partners (European NGOs, UN agencies and International Organisations) as well as its increased field capacity[11] improved the response time for delivering humanitarian aid.

[2] Article 1 of the Joint Action of 21 December 1998 (98/733/JHA) states "Within the meaning of this Joint Action, a criminal organisation shall mean a structured association, established over a period of time, of more than two persons, acting in concert with a view to committing offences which are punishable by deprivation of liberty or a detention order of a maximum of at least four years or a more serious penalty, whether such offences are an end in themselves or a means of obtaining material benefits and, where appropriate, of improperly influencing the operation of public authorities".

Improving practice here would enable the Office to deploy its investigation resources more effectively and would encourage complementarity between anti-fraud action with on-the-spot checks and inspections that authorising and administrative services conduct on the basis of sectoral regulations, to ensure the sound implementation of Community policies, the regularity of the accounts and the smooth operation of national management and control systems.