Regional firefighting hub in Cyprus to be inaugurated this month

A new regional firefighting hub is to be inaugurated in Cyprus this month, the government said on Saturday.

It said the hub will be inaugurated by President Nikos Christodoulides and European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen on the sidelines of the informal European Council meeting which is set to take place on the island on April 23 and April 24.

Christodoulides was on Saturday briefed on work being conducted towards the hub’s creation during a visit to Paphos’ Andreas Papandreou airbase on Saturday, with the government saying that the plans for the hub, laid out by the European Commission, “highlight the active role of Cyprus in shaping European civil protection planning”.

“The hub’s creation will once again highlight Cyprus’ strategic role in the context of European and regional civil protection, strengthening Europe’s collective capacity to respond to the challenges of the climate crisis, while at the same time substantially upgrading the Republic of Cyprus’ position,” it said.

Plans for the hub’s creation had been announced by von der Leyen in her State of the European Union address last September.

“This summer, we all saw the pictures of Europe’s forests and villages on fire … The scale of the damage is enormous. And we know it is not a one off. Climate change is making each summer hotter, harsher, and more dangerous,” she said.

For this reason, she said, “we will propose to create a new European firefighting hub based in Cyprus, which could also support our regional neighbours”.

Christodoulides described the proposal at the time as “momentous” and “hugely important”.

Later, European Council President Antonio Costa had said during a visit to Cyprus that he welcomes the move, and stressed that “a very important issue is addressing the consequences of climate change”.

Christodoulides had then said during a meeting with Lebanese President Joseph Aoun that the hub “could function as a hub for the entire eastern Mediterranean”, with Lebanon having provided two firefighting aircraft to Cyprus last summer, when a wildfire tore through the Limassol district and killed two people.

He said that Cyprus’ intention is to “contribute to and to actively support the upgrading of relations” between the EU and Lebanon and for a strategic and comprehensive partnership agreement between the EU and Lebanon to be forged, similar to those reached between the EU and both Egypt and Jordan.