Members of the COTER Commission have today adopted ECR coordinator Pavel Branda's opinion on cross-border emergency services, encouraging all levels of government to tackle these potentially life-threatening obstacles.

Following the adoption of his draft opinion "Solving obstacles to the cooperation of emergency services in the EU’s border regions", Mr Branda referred to the various types of obstacles to cross-border cooperation in emergency services, including "legal and administrative, financial, technical, linguistic, and mental and cultural."

The rapporteur highlighted that on many borders of the EU, "ambulances or fire trucks cannot cross the border despite this endangering peoples’ lives, and citizens cannot be transferred to the nearest hospital as it is across the border in another Member State". In this regard, the Deputy Mayor of Rádlo emphasised the importance of all levels of government working together to address these obstacles, which according to him "are still too widespread".

The draft opinion will next be voted in the CoR plenary session in November.