Last week ResQU2 partners presented their idea of an international coordinating group on emergency preparedness to professionals gathered in a meeting for SAR divers. This coordination group would continue the cooperation initiated in the previous Dive SMART Baltic flagship project. The meeting took place on 21 October 2020.
The aim of this meeting was to suggest an international coordinating group for the region based on the gaps that were already mapped out in the Dive SMART Baltic flagship project, one of the ResQU2 platform projects. DiveSMART partners came to a conclusion that no country alone would be able to handle an accident such as Costa Concordia. Also, cooperation between diving organisations would be essential. A solution to this would be joint coordination of the cooperation to get the resources in full use for critical incidents.
ResQU2 partners have worked on policy papers to get an official commitment from the BSR countries in the joint coordination. These were introduced in the meeting. Expert participants saw the benefits of more coordinated cooperation. They even found it necessary. However, it is up to the official bodies in each country to make the commitment. For this, participants were given some homework before the next meeting as for the matter to progress, we need to
– get BSR countries to confirm that the signed policy paper is necessary for participation;
– have national chairmen to work in the international coordination group;
– get a suggestion for the chairman of the international coordination group; and
– get a suggestion for the umbrella organisation for the group.
This meeting showed that the matter is progressing. Not one of the participants opposed the idea of joint coordination of rescue resources in an international group dedicated to this. The original idea of the ResQU2 partners was to pilot the joint coordination within the diving community. ResQU2 continues to forward this matter and the next meeting was already agreed to take place in December 2020.
The meeting took place online on 21 October 2020. Over ten diving professionals from five Baltic sea countries participated.