General preparedness actions of the Commission
Article 8
The Commission shall carry out the following preparedness actions: (a) manage the ERCC; (b) manage a Common Emergency Communication and Information System (CECIS) to enable communication and sharing of information between the ERCC and the Member States' contact points; (c) contribute to the development and better integration of transnational detection and early warning and alert systems of European interest in order to enable a rapid response, and to promote the inter-linkage between national early warning and alert systems and their linkage to the ERCC and the CECIS. Those systems shall take into account and build upon existing and future information, monitoring and detection sources and systems; (d) establish and manage the capability to mobilise and dispatch expert teams, responsible for: (i) assessing the needs that can possibly be addressed under the Union Mechanism in the state requesting assistance, (ii) facilitating, when necessary, the coordination of disaster response assistance on site and liaising with the competent authorities of the state requesting assistance, and (iii) supporting the requesting state with expertise on prevention, preparedness or response actions; (e) establish and maintain the capability to provide logistical support for those expert teams; (f) develop and maintain a network of trained experts of the Member States, who can be available at short notice to assist the ERCC in the monitoring of information and facilitating coordination; (g) facilitate the coordination of the Member States' pre-positioning of disaster response capacities inside the Union; (h) support efforts to improve the inter-operability of modules and other response capacities, taking into account the best practices at the level of the Member States and at international level; (i) take, within its sphere of competence, the necessary actions to facilitate host nation support, including developing and updating, together with Member States, guidelines on host nation support, on the basis of operational experience; (j) support the creation of voluntary peer review assessment programmes for the Member States' preparedness strategies, based on pre-defined criteria, which will enable recommendations to be formulated to strengthen the level of preparedness of the Union; and (k) in close consultation with the Member States, take additional necessary supporting and complementary preparedness action to achieve the objective specified in point (b) of Article 3(1).