European Commission spokesperson confirms that 15 Member States have already activated the mechanism
This Thursday, Portugal activated the European Civil Protection Mechanism to organize the repatriation of Portuguese citizens in the Middle East, a European Commission spokesperson told Lusa news agency.
According to European sources told Lusa, Portugal asked for a repatriation flight to be organized, offering to give seats on that flight to other Member States.
Speaking to Lusa, the European Commission spokesperson responsible for Preparation, Eva Hrncirova, said that 15 Member States have so far activated the European Civil Protection Mechanism to repatriate national citizens and confirmed that Portugal is one of them.
The spokeswoman said that some of the organized flights had already “arrived safely in Europe and others are planned for the coming days”.
“The situation is unstable and changes every hour. For this reason, and for security reasons, we do not disclose details of the operations”, he said.
Under the European Civil Protection Mechanism, Member States can ask the EU for assistance in repatriating citizens, with the European Commission then being responsible for coordinating the response and “contributing to the transport and operational costs of flights”.
In the current case, the EU Emergency Response Coordination Center is logistically coordinating the flights made available by different Member States, having already helped organize at least six repatriation flights between Tuesday and Thursday.
In a statement released this morning, the community executive states that, in addition to ensuring coordination efforts, it also covers “part of the costs of repatriation flights”.
This European financing varies between 50% (when more than 70% of the passengers are citizens of the country that organized the flight and the rest from other EU Member States), 75% (if on board more than 30% are citizens of the organizing nationality) and 100% (in the case of requests made directly to Brussels to organize, for example, when it is a small country).
To Lusa, the European Commission spokesperson indicated that the executive is focused on two priorities: “helping Member States and protecting European citizens from adverse consequences arising from the situation in Iran and the Middle East”.
“To that end, the European Commission is increasing its support for repatriation and evacuation efforts, including under the European Civil Protection Mechanism and the EU Emergency Response Coordination Center, working closely with EU delegations and national consular authorities,” he said.
On February 28, the United States and Israel launched a military attack against Iran, killing Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, the country’s supreme leader since 1989, during the offensive.
The Iranian Leadership Council currently assumes leadership of the country.
Iran closed the Strait of Hormuz and launched retaliatory attacks against targets in Israel, US bases and other infrastructure in countries in the region such as Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, United Arab Emirates, Qatar, Kuwait, Lebanon, Jordan, Oman and Iraq. Incidents with Iranian projectiles were also recorded in Cyprus and Turkey.
Since the beginning of the conflict, more than a thousand deaths have been recorded, most of them Iranians.
