Following a request for assistance from the Czech Republic, the EU is immediately sending a batch of 30 ventilators from rescEU - the common European reserve of medical equipment set up earlier this year to help countries affected by the coronavirus pandemic.
First rescEU ventilators dispatched to Czech Republic
As President Ursula von der Leyen said yesterday: “We do not leave our European friends alone in these hard times. The European Commission is mobilising medical material through our Civil Protection Mechanism. I just called the Prime Minister, Andrej Babiš, to tell him that we are dispatching rapidly to Czechia a set of 30 ventilators from our RescEU reserve … And we are in touch with other EU countries, to mobilise more ventilators for the Czech Republic. We are in this together.”
Commissioner for Crisis Management, Janez Lenarčič, added: “We have been working around the clock to avoid a repetition of the situation experienced at the end of February, when the whole EU was overwhelmed in the fight against the pandemic. We created the rescEU medical reserve so no Member State is left alone when dealing with the same challenge. After already delivering protective face masks across Europe, this will be the first time the European Commission is dispatching ventilators from the EU level reserve."
The EU’s Emergency Response Coordination Centre is in constant contact with authorities in Czechia and more EU assistance can be channelled in the coming days via the EU Civil Protection Mechanism, coming from Member States.