European Commissioner for humanitarian aid to visit Romania's flooded regions. Poland, Hungary and Bulgaria join the countries offering help

Kristalina Georghieva, The European Commissioner for international cooperation, humanitarian aid and emergency response is going to visit Romania, meet with national authorities and see the disaster caused by floods, her spokesperson announced on Tuesday, during the press briefing at the European Commission. Plus, Bulgaria, Poland and Hungary are joining the four countries who have already announced their aid after Romania activated EU’s civil protection mechanism.

„Commissioner Georghieva is going visit Romania on Friday. In fact, Friday is an important day, because another wave is expected, which could provoke more floods”, the commissioner’s spokesperson Ferran Tarradelas said. He told HotNews.ro that Georghieva will discuss with the Romanian authorities about the way they face the crisis caused by the floods. The Romanian Interior Ministry is the one to organise the trip.

Additionally, three more states are going to offer Romania technical support, thorough EU’s civil protection mechanism. „What is interesting is that two offers come from countries that have suffered floods themselves”, the spokesperson added, referring to Hungary and Poland. The third country is Bulgaria.

Hungary offered 10 water pomps, two electricity generators, and 8 illuminating equipments. Poland, which has also been a floods victim, offered two containers with protection equipment and a team of 23 rescuers, as well as 8 pomps, 4 of which of large capacity. Bulgaria came with a team of 20 rescuers, 40 motor-pomps, 4 rescue boats with equipment and 10,000 sacks of sand.

Tarradellas said the monitoring centre was still waiting for new offers.

Romania activated EU’s civil protection mechanism very late (later than Friday morning). The request was followed by a prompt reply coming from four countries: France, Belgium, Estonia and Austria.