The European Commission, DG for Environment, Civil Protection Unit launched October 14th, a call for proposals aiming to improve civil protection preparedness and response for emergencies throughout providing a testing environment and learning opportunity for all actors involved in civil protection assistance interventions under the Community Civil Protection Mechanism. This support will take the form of co-financing grants.

The purpose of this call for proposals is to identify organisations and bodies from participating countries  according to Council Decision Nº 2007/779/EC, Euratom, whose actions in the field of simulation exercises might be eligible for financial support from the Commission.

The Civil Protection Financial Instrument aims to support and complement the efforts of the Member States for the protection, primarily of people but also of the environment and property, including cultural heritage, in the event of natural and man-made disasters, acts of terrorism and technological, radiological or environmental accidents and to facilitate reinforced cooperation between the Member States in the field of civil protection.

The activities which might be eligible to be funded under this Call include:

• Full scale civil protection exercises with a command post part, involving intervention teams.
• Full scale civil protection exercises with command post part, involving civil protection modules and/or technical assistance and support teams defined in the recast and in the implementing rules on modules.
• Command post exercises.

Budget and Deadline

The indicative total budget for the Call for Proposals  to support simulation exercises in the field of the Community Civil Protection Mechanism, will be up to 4,003,473 €.

The maximum EC funding rate (percentage applied on the eligible costs according to the project budget) in the framework of this call for proposals is up to 75% of eligible costs per proposal. Given the complementary nature of EU grants, at least 25% of the total project cost must be funded by other sources. Furthermore, the EC contribution per project is limited to a maximum of 1 M€.

The procedure for the award of grants is scheduled as follows:

1. Receipt, recording and acknowledgement of receipt by the Commission.
2. Appraisal of the proposals by the Commission.
3. Award decision and notification of the result to the applicants.

The call is open to any applicant established in one of the 27 EU Member States and the three EFTA/EEA countries: Iceland, Liechtenstein and Norway.

Proposals must be sent by December 19th, 2008, in one single batch, by postal mail or private courier service:

EUROPEAN COMMISSION
DG Environment / Civil Protection Unit (ENV.A.3)
CALL FOR PROPOSALS “SIMULATION  EXERCISES"
BU-9 2/170
B-1049 Brussels

Grant Applicantion Guide as well as all the relevant documentation for application is available at the dedicated page of the Civil Protection Financial Instrument website.