European officials on Thursday unveiled the new RescEU emergency response system which will significantly increase the bloc's reserve of fire-fighting aircraft as climate change challenges continue to mount. "RescEU means European solidarity and protection in this way, we can save lives, we can save properties," European Commissioner for Humanitarian Aid Christos Stylianides told reporters at the Greek airforce base of Elefsina near Athens, home to part of Greece's fire-fighting fleet.

"EU citizens...want to feel the union near them when they are tested by natural disasters," he said. Greece was hit by a spate of wildfires last month, fanned by gale-force winds and temperatures of up to 40 degrees Celsius (104 Fahrenheit). Fellow EU member Spain has frequently been plagued by huge forest fires, most recently on the holiday island of Gran Canaria.

Southern France suffered extremely dry conditions after weeks of drought and record high temperatures and it took over 500 firefighters to tackle a blaze in the Aude department last month. The RescEU mechanism, which entered into force on March 21, is an "enhancement" of the European civil protection mechanism which has been in place since 2001, officials said. Under the old system, the EU had a first response team of eight fire-fighting aircraft from France, Italy and Spain.

Copyright Agence France-Presse, 2019