March 25 (SeeNews) - The European Commission said on Monday it is financing with 600 million euro ($650 million) the purchase of firefighting aircraft, which will be hosted by Croatia, France, Italy, Greece, Portugal, and Spain.
"These new planes will be used to extinguish fires across the European Union, in particular during the difficult summer months when lives, homes and livelihoods are coming increasingly under threat to large scale forest fires," the Commission said in a press release on Monday.
The planes will increase the aerial firefighting capacity of rescEU, the EU Civil Protection Mechanism's strategic crisis response reserve.
They will be delivered as of 2027, with the existing transition planes of rescEU operating until the whole fleet is operational.
On Monday, the government of Croatia and the Canadian Commercial Corporation - Canada’s government to government contracting agency, signed an agreement to buy specialised firefighting aircraft, the Commission also said in the same press release, without providing further details.
The two aircraft will be provided by De Havilland Canada Aircraft and each will cost some 50 million euro, Croatian prime minister Andrej Plenkovic said, as seen in a video recording published by the TV broadcaster HRT.
They will boost Croatia's firefighting fleet to eight aircraft, he added.
($ = 0.923 euro)