Over a million protective masks and 700,000 protective gloves have been donated to Serbia through the EU Civil Protection Mechanism, which operates a special facility for managing emergencies, ‘RescEU’. The delivery was worth €857,000.

Serbia is the biggest beneficiary of RescEU in Europe during the COVID 19 crisis, having received personal protective equipment worth more than €6.8 million. EU assistance to Serbia during COVID-19 has taken many forms: funding recruitment of Serbian medical staff, transporting hundreds of tons of medical supplies, donating millions of personal protective items, bringing back Serbian stranded citizens from every corner of the world, purchasing ambulances and decontamination vehicles.

Background

The EU Civil Protection Mechanism facilitates cooperation in emergency response, preparation and prevention between Member States, as well as several other European countries. Serbia became a member of the Mechanism in 2015, but had already benefitted before that, during the devastating floods in May 2014. That operation was one of the largest since the Mechanism was established.