The European Union will start storage operations of protective devices and medicines to strengthen its defenses against chemical, nuclear and biological accidents. The supplies arriving in the context of the war in Ukraine, according to the Reuters agency, will also include decontamination equipment, gloves, masks and other chemical, biological, radiological and nuclear defense materials two sources familiar with the subject revealed to the British agency.
The storage should last weeks, perhaps even a few months, and would serve to expand the reserves available to EU countries, but also to include partner countries, starting with Ukraine. The start of storage operations to improve EU preparedness in the area of chemical, biological, radiological and nuclear threats was anticipated by a spokesman for the European Commission on 21 March in a press briefing.
“IThe preparatory work predates the war in Ukraine However, according to Reuters, to have pushed the European Commission to intervene on the reserves of medical devices and drugs was, at least in part, the concern that nuclear accidents or other serious events could occur in Ukraine. A fear that also emerges from the minutes, made public this week, of two meetings of EU health experts that were held in March. During one of these meetings, Reuters specified, the Commission announced that about twenty states EU members have stocks of iodine pills, which are useful in the event of a radiation leak.