Moldovan rescuers and firefighters involved for the first time in an exercise that brings us closer to European civil protection standards

The Republican Training Centre of the General Inspectorate for Emergency Situations (GIES) of the Ministry of Internal Affairs hosted a Staff Exercise. The Moldovan rescuers and firefighters trained, together with colleagues from 13 other countries, to cope with international emergency situations.

More than 90 specialists and experts from 13 countries such as Belgium, Germany, Bulgaria, Sweden, Italy, Finland, Norway, Jordan, Palestine, Romania, Austria, Hungary and Poland participated in large-scale crisis management exercises. It’s about simulating an exceptional situation that exceeds the response and intervention capacity of a single country. Therefore, rescue teams ask for help colleagues from other countries. The host country coordinates these interventions.

Today’s exercises were based on scenarios involving risk situations such as floods and earthquakes. According to the scenario, a disaster of extraordinary proportions occurred with the collapse of the national energy grid. Experts activated virtually the European Union Civil Protection Mechanism to improve cooperation and coordination procedures in exceptional situations between emergency institutions and services.

Exercises such as the one held today in Razeni help us to develop the national response capacity to disasters and emergencies. At the same time, such experiences are a good opportunity to better inform and prepare citizens by promoting the appropriate behaviour in exceptional circumstances.

Last year, several guidelines, recommendations and instructions have been developed in this respect. Thematic lessons and trainings for children, awareness raising campaigns have been organised and appreciated by citizens. Such initiatives of the MIA will continue. The humanitarian crises of recent years have shown that the scale of these crises goes far beyond a country’s response capacity, and this underlines the need for mutual support and continuous communication, keeping citizens informed and helping them stay safe.

In the last 18 months, the Republic of Moldova’s team of rescuers and firefighters has been involved in 3 international rescue missions, each time successfully. The achievements of GIES’s colleagues in such experiences of high professionalism and solidarity ultimately mean a better quality of intervention services provided in response to people’s daily needs.