Sarkozy Joins Lellouche's Call for All-EU Emergency Response Team

French President Nicolas Sarkozy joined the call last week to create an all-EU crisis response team to stem the destruction of disasters all over the world. 

The recent series of emergencies, from floods in Pakistan, the forest fires in Russia, to January's earthquake in Haiti -- and now the predicted flooding in the China-North Korea border region -- has attracted increasingly global attention on disasters. The international community is generating widespread discussion on the appropriate role for non-local governments in disaster relief. (...)

Lellouche Calls for EU National Guard, Belies Economic Backstory with Russia

In the wake of Russia's devastating forest fires, Pierre Lellouche, French minister for the EU, called this week for an EU-wide "crisis response force" to better deal with potential catastrophes. This begs a comparison to the National Guard, as the most similar body is known in the United States. 

The minister cited the Haiti earthquake disaster and last summer's fires in Greece as proof of the necessity in creating a federal EU crisis response detail to handle natural and other disasters as they erupt. (...)