(22 May, 2025) On May 13 the European Parliament’s Committee on Employment organised a public hearing on the challenges of cross-borders firefighters. EPSU representative Michael Hirt, a professional firefighter from German affiliate Ver.di, spoke on behalf of the EPSU Firefighters’ Network. The meeting chaired by the President of the EMPL committee Li Andersson was organised after the initiative of EPP MEP Pascal Arimont (Belgium) who is the Vice-Chair of the Civil Protection Intergroup. Deputy Director-General Stefan Olsson represented the European Commission.
EPSU reiterated its calls for occupational health and safety regulations to be harmonised to the highest standards throughout the EU and continuously developed further, as well as for obligatory recording operations (in contact with toxic substances) to be introduced throughout the EU. Contrary to current calls for 'reducing administrative burdens', firefighters need a higher degree of protection. This requires recording the type of exposure they are facing. Finally, the staffing and equipment of fire services must be based on both the needs of civil protection and on occupational health and safety. For this cause, sufficient funding must be made available to local authorities in EU member states for this purpose.
You can watch the hearing, titled 'Volunteers in emergency services and their legal challenges: cases of cross-border firefighters', here.
On the same day a delegation of firefighters from Belgium, Germany, Norway, Sweden, Estonia and Italy participated in a public event co-organised by EPSU and MEP Arimont on the challenges that professional firefighters are facing across Europe.
The EPSU delegation met with MEPs from several groups including Grégory Allione (FR, Renew), Pascal Arimont (BE, EPP), Annalisa Corrado (IT, S&D), Estelle Ceulemans (BE, S&D), Per Clausen (DK, Left), Johan Danielsson (SE, S&D), Cristina Guarda (IT, Green), Benedetta Scuderi (IT, Green) and Jana Toom (ES, Renew).
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