EMERCOM of Russia and the CSTO PA will continue developing model laws

On May 20, Aleksei Serko, State Secretary and deputy Minister of the Russian Federation for Civil Defence, Emergencies and Elimination of Consequences of Natural Disasters, met with Sergei Pospelov, Executive Secretary of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Collective Security Treaty Organization. They reaffirmed the interest in further participation of EMERCOM experts in model lawmaking.

Meeting participants discussed collaboration on drafting model laws and expert work.

Cooperation between the CSTO Member States in the sphere of emergency prevention and natural disasters management has become one of the main directions of the Organization’s activity, which is carried out within the CSTO Member States Coordination Council for Emergencies, established in accordance with the decision of the CSTO Collective Security Council of October 6, 2007. The CSTO closely follows its work.

Through its activities the CSTO Parliamentary Assembly contributes to the approximation of the laws of the CSTO Member States in order to harmonize legislative approaches, eliminate differences in the definition and classification of critical facilities, in competencies and responsibilities of authorized entities, accountability and control.

To accomplish these tasks, the CSTO PA develops and adopts recommendations and model laws.

Vyacheslav Volodin, Chairman of the CSTO PA and Chairman of the State Duma of the Federal Assembly of the Russian Federation, has set a clear goal of improving the quality of model laws developed by the CSTO Parliamentary Assembly that promote the approximation of the laws of the CSTO States, which also requires closer cooperation with experts and developers of model recommendations and laws.

To date, the Assembly has adopted the following recommendations that are used in national parliaments:

– Recommendations on the Harmonization of the Emergency Response Legislation of the CSTO Member States;

– Recommendations on the Harmonization of the CSTO Member States’ Legislation Governing Security of Critical Facilities;

– Recommendations on Harmonization of the CSTO Member States’ Legislation Governing the Activities of Emergency Services and Status of Rescuers.

These recommendations contain provisions about the development prospects of emergency rescue services of the CSTO Member States and the use of new technologies and materials for emergency response, as well as forecasts on new rescuer specialties and their training programmes.

Recommendations on Harmonization of the CSTO Member States’ Legislation Governing Personnel Training and Retraining on Safety in Emergency Situations also solve important problems.

In addition to the recommendations dealing with emergency response, the model laws adopted by the CSTO PA also contribute to the approximation and harmonization of legislation in this area.

They include model laws on humanitarian assistance, on energy security and on non-state actors ensuring national security.

Despite the great amount of work done by the CSTO Parliamentary Assembly, many legislative issues still require unification and harmonization.