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(2004/C 84 E/0329)

WRITTEN QUESTION E-4007/03

by Paulo Casaca (PSE) to the Commission

(8 January 2004)

Subject:   Earthquake risk prevention

According to press reports (see the 16 December 2003 issue of the newspaper ‘Açoreano Oriental’), the chairman of the Portuguese Seismic Engineering Society (SPES), in a speech made on the fringe of a seminar on ‘at-risk territory’, declared that ‘the European organisations for the study of earthquakes have tried in vain to alert the European Commission to the need for action to reduce earthquake risks in the countries most liable to be affected’.

Can the Commission confirm this?

If not, can it explain the nature of its crisis strategy for preventing the consequences of earthquakes?

Answer given by Mrs Wallström on behalf of the Commission

(17 February 2004)

In the framework of the Community action programme for civil protection, the Commission is developing a project on damage assessment in order to identify guidelines on how to classify the risk level of buildings after earthquakes. Experience has shown that private and public buildings need to be classified to protect the population concerned by preventing it from any post-earthquake damage. The project will be finalised in September 2004 and its results will be subject to an in-depth examination with the national civil protection contact points in order to have the guidelines widely adopted.

Moreover, the Commission's European Laboratory for Structural Assessment (ELSA) laboratory of the Joint Research Centre has since 1992 been developing research on seismic assessment and retrofit of structures performing pseudo-dynamic reference tests on large/full scale models buildings and other structures. The work is carried out in collaboration with Member States' research institutions and aims at calibration of Eurocode 8, to be approved in the future as the European norm for design of civil structures in seismic regions.

Availability of harmonized and advanced codes for design of civil engineering constructions in Europe is considered a key instrument for the realisation of the single market and for increasing competitiveness of the construction industry, but it is also considered a basic instrument to provide for adequate safety for new structures as well as to retrofit existing vulnerable ones.

Given the efforts of the Commission and the European Committee for Standardisation (CEN) on the approval of the set of more than 50 European Norms forming the Eurocodes, foreseen by the end of 2006, the Joint Research Centre, both through its institutional programme and through support to the Directorate-General Enterprise, will continue contributing to further develop the European Norms which are considered as an important component for the mitigation of the seismic risks in the medium/long term.

Furthermore, the Commission, through Directorate-General Research, has been funding, since 1986, the whole spectra of seismic risk research (earthquake engineering and seismology), through the FP3, FP4, FP5 and FP6 Framework Programmes. In the context of the FP6 Research Framework Programme — Global Change, and Ecosystem, the integrated project Lessloss (1) (under negotiation) will bring together 47 partners from European universities, research institutions, industry and the Joint Research Centre.

It aims to improve the earthquake resistant design of structures and contribute to the formulation and improvement of Eurocode 8 (related to construction norms).

Moreover, in the case of an earthquake, the Commission through its Monitoring and Information Centre can pool the assistance offered by the Member States as it did in the case of the Algerian earthquake in May 2003 and more recently after the earthquake in Iran in December 2003.

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(1)  Project relevant to seismic risk assessment and protection against earthquakes.

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