But when a major disaster occurs, and national capacities are overwhelmed, a common European response is more effective than Member States acting alone.

(20a) In order to supplement the provisions of this Decision, the power to adopt acts in accordance with Article 290 of the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union should be delegated to the Commission in respect of establishing and managing the Emergency Response Centre (ERC) and specifying the functioning of the Common Emergency Communication and Information System; specifying the conditions for identifying modules and the general requirements for their functioning and interoperability; establishing conditions for resources available for assistance intervention; specifying the functioning of the European emergency response capactity (EERC) as a voluntary pool, the capacity goals for the EERC, the interoperability and quality require ...[+++]ments for capacities in the EERC, and the process for certification and registration of capacities; specifying the modalities for addressing capacity gaps; defining the aim, the content, the structure, the organisation, and the target group of the training programme and the training network; specifying the procedure for responding to major disasters or imminent major disasters within and outside the Union; specifying the functioning of the expert teams and the conditions of selection, dispatching and disengaging an expert team; specifying the level of detail of the information on equipment and transport resources and specifying the procedures for the identification of such equipment and resources and for the provision of additional transport resources; specifying the procedure for requesting and deciding on granting Union financial support for transport; and adopting the annual work programmes.

8. Agrees that the European disaster response should build both on a European emergency response capacity through the strengthening of the European Civil Protection Mechanism based on the capacities and availability of pre-identified and therefore predictable Member States' emergency assets and on a European emergency response centre as the cornerstones of such a strategy, as outlined in the Communication of 26 October 2010; underlines that these developments should follow an all-hazards approach, bringing together all relevant players – in particular civil society – including non-governmental organisations and volunteers, for ...[+++]joined-up action, and should exploit synergies among the various existing tools and instruments;

8. Agrees that the European disaster response should build both on a European emergency response capacity through the strengthening of the European Civil Protection Mechanism based on the capacities and availability of pre-identified and therefore predictable Member States’ emergency assets and on a European emergency response centre as the cornerstones of such a strategy, as outlined in the Communication of 26 October 2010; underlines that these developments should follow an all-hazards approach, bringing together all relevant players – in particular civil society – including non-governmental organisations and volunteers, for ...[+++]joined-up action, and should exploit synergies among the various existing tools and instruments;

14. Calls for the urgent establishment of a European crisis-response mechanism, based in the Commission's services, which should coordinate civilian and military means so as to ensure that the EU has a rapid-response capability to deal with a CBRN disaster; and reiterates its call for the establishment of a European civil protection force based on the existing EU Civil Protection Mechanism, which will enable the Union to bring together the resources necessary for providing emergency assistance, including humanitarian aid, within 24 h ...[+++]ours of a CBRN disaster inside or outside EU territory; stresses that suitable bridges and partnerships should also be built between bodies such as Europol, Interpol and law-enforcement authorities in the Member States with a view to creating an appropriate and effective network for proactive anticipation/real-time monitoring of emergencies and operational engagement/coordination to deal with CBRN-related disasters, and stresses the need to report to the Commission as well; recalls the 2006 Barnier report entitled ‘For a European civil protection force: Europe aid’ which Parliament strongly supported, and welcomes in that regard the new willingness by the Commission to create a European Emergency Response Capacity, as stated in the Commission Communication entitled ‘Towards a stronger European disaster response: the role of civil protection and humanitarian assistance’ (COM(2010)0600);

1. Welcomes the above-mentioned Commission Communication on reinforcing the Union's disaster response capacity as well as the overall objective of greater coherence, effectiveness and visibility of the EU disaster response;