Easing legal and administrative obstacles in EU border regions : Case Study No. 6: Emergency response : obstacles linked different national management systems handling crises and disasters (Hungary - Slovakia)

Differences between national crisis, disaster and emergency management systems pose a threat to safety and the provision of care and services in EU cross-border regions. Emergency services and crisis management systems fail to provide the same level of service in the border regions as in the rest of the countries. Effective cross-border cooperation is often hindered by a lack of legal advice and information, administrative challenges as well as language and cultural barriers. Cross-border crisis and emergency management systems cover a wide range of issues from emergency medical services and rescue operations to flood relief and water management. This case study looks at both these examples of emergency management. Careful coordination is required in cross-border areas in order to ensure an effective and efficient coverage of emergency health care. In spite of existing EU legislation, e.g. the Directive 2011/24/EU on the application of patients' rights, healthcare crisis management systems in the EU are faced with numerous legal and practical obstacles which hinder efficient crisis management in the field of emergency rescue services. Differences in healthcare, health insurance and financing systems as well as language and cultural barriers, lead to a lack of clarity in what emergency services can do and who is responsible for them. There is considerable scope of improvement through the introduction of further legislation, its practical implementation as well as the further development of institutional cooperation. In the field of natural disasters, flooding in particular has been a major issue in the last decades. Substantial progress has been made with the introduction of the Directive 2007/60/EC on the assessment and management of flood risk, the establishment of the Emergency Response Coordination Centre (ERCC) and the EU Civil Protection Mechanism (CPM). Also, interesting cross-border projects have been carried out in this field. Nevertheless, given that the danger of flooding is likely to increase through climate change in the future, much remains to be done. The illustrative case tackled in this case study is the border between Hungary and Slovakia. Here, the main obstacles are the historic differences in legislation and administrative structures responsible for civil protection and disaster management. The Slovak regions are much larger than the Hungarian regions and the latter are self-governed whereas the former are more dependent on the state government. To coordinate joint projects, a Hungarian and Slovak Intergovernmental Joint Commission for cross-border cooperation with 12 intergovernmental joint commissions on specific themes were set up in 2001. Since then, a number of bilateral cooperation agreements have been reached between regional or local authorities on both sides of the border. Successful projects have particularly been carried out in the field of water management, but also in the field of emergency and rescue services.