On the eve of the upcoming tourist season, a meeting of the Civil Protection Headquarters of the City of Dubrovnik was held today in the premises of the Dubrovnik Fire Brigade on the preparation, maintenance and operation of operational forces and emergency services in the summer months. The meeting was also attended by the Head of the Administrative Department for Education, Sports, Social Welfare and Civil Society Dživo Brčić.

On this occasion, the Chief of Staff of Civil Protection, Stijepko Krilanović, presented to all participants measures and activities in terms of greater safety of visitors and guests, fire protection and support to the health system for the organization of vaccination points against COVID-19. Furthermore, Krilanović commented on the need to ensure conditions (functionality and readiness of facilities) in cases of major accidents or disasters and the timeliness and involvement of operational forces in the context of taking care of tourists in unexpected circumstances.

At today's meeting, they discussed the activities related to the European project E-CITIZENS, through which the City of Dubrovnik procured valuable equipment for civil protection - a set of seismic devices with a video camera to search the ruins and inflatable tents. The equipment was procured in order to increase preparedness and action in cases of natural disasters, more precisely in the event of an earthquake.

Also, other activities of the European project were presented, as part of which trainings were held for citizens and children on the topic of emergency situations, i.e. timely and correct actions during earthquakes. It is worth mentioning that the project is currently testing and analysing a platform through which citizens would use social networks to contribute to the early detection and potential prevention of natural and anthropogenic threats that could ultimately be of great benefit to all emergency services.

The E-CITIZENS project is funded under Priority Axis 2: Security and Resilience, INTERREG Italy-Croatia program, and lasts until June 30, 2022. Namely, the final conference of the project will be held in Dubrovnik in June this year.

The total budget of the project is €2,846,100.00, and is 85 percent co-financed by the European Union.