News

Progress in sight for fire safety in Europe

Commission launches Fire Information Exchange Platform, European Parliament discusses the issue of firefighters’ high cancer risk, and more.

The European Parliament debated fire safety in buildings for the first time on 13 September. Thanks to the support of many Europeans, including a good number of Members of the European Parliament, who took the floor to urge the European Commission to act, the European Commission announced at that meeting that it would create a platform to discuss fire safety with the Member States and stakeholders.

“The debate is closed but the issue is not”, said the vice-chair of the European Parliament MEP Pavel Telička at the end of the meeting. We couldn’t agree more. In this newsletter, we will highlight the big steps coming in the near future to improve fire safety in buildings.

First meeting of the new Fire Information Exchange Platform

On 16 October, the very first meeting of the new Fire Information Exchange Platform (FIEP) will be organised by the European Commission in Brussels.

This meeting will bring together the Member States and stakeholders to discuss fire safety in building issues, exchange data, best practices and lessons learnt on fire safety in buildings.

This platform follows the initiative taken by the Republic of Slovakia during its presidency of the Council of the European Union last year to organise a Member State Roundtable on fire safety in buildings. The conclusions of this 29 November 2016 roundtable will be presented by a Slovak representative.

This platform is also supported by the Estonian Presidency of the Council of the European Union.

The meeting is expected to discuss, among other issues:

The ongoing studies on smoke toxicity and on developing an EU approach to the fire assessment of facades.

Fire safety in high-rise buildings

Eurocodes standards & the use of fire engineering principles

FSEU welcomes this initiative by the European Commission and stands ready to support the work of the platform. FSEU has high hopes that the EU will also develop a fire safety strategy moving forward.

Image shows Commissioner Elżbieta Bieńkowska announces the creation of the Fire Information Exchange Platform on 13 September during the European Parliament Plenary debate on fire safety in buildings.