Slovenian and Italian firefighters sign cooperation agreement

It will bring rapid, successful and precise interventions that will be safer for people and nature, said Aleš Markočič of the Nova Gorica fire brigade as quoted by the Civil Protection and Disaster Relief Administration on Twitter on Tuesday.

Stanislav Lotrič, the deputy director general of the national Civil Protection and Disaster Relief Administration, also noted that the main purpose of the agreement was taking action in the event of accidents in the Slovenia-Italy border area in a more effective manner.

On the part of Slovenia, the agreement was signed on Tuesday by the directors of five professional fire brigades and related institutions and the mayors of 18 Slovenian border municipalities, the administration added.

Several training and rescue drills were carried out and a variety of firefighting equipment was purchased as part of the project that has been running since the beginning of 2019 and is wrapping up at the end of this month.

The project is worth EUR 3 million, of which around EUR 2.5 million were EU funds, said Nova Gorica fire brigade commander Simon Vendramin. It involves nine partners, including five from Slovenia.

There has been a number of Slovenia-Italy firefighting missions in the past, mainly to put out wildfires in the border area, but the stepped-up cooperation under the agreement is expected to reduce response time on both sides of the border.