Ebola crisis to top agenda at EU foreign affairs council

Minister for Foreign Affairs Charlie Flanagan will meet his European counterparts in Luxembourg today in an attempt to forge a co-ordinated response to the Ebola crisis, which has claimed more than 4,500 lives.

Ministers are also due to discuss the threat of Islamic State and the continuing tensions in Ukraine, but the Ebola crisis is expected to top today's Foreign Affairs Council, one of the last to be chaired by outgoing EU foreign policy chief Catherine Ashton.

Ahead of Thursday and Friday's summit of EU leaders in Brussels, British prime minister David Cameron wrote to European Council president Herman Van Rompuy and other prime ministers, urging leaders to agree to an "ambitious package of measures" at the summit. This would include a doubling of EU funds to €1 billion and the mobilisation of at least 2,000 workers to travel to the region, including 1,000 clinical staff, by mid-November.

“If we do not significantly step up our collective response now, the loss of life and damage to the political, economic and social fabric of the region will be substantial and the threat posed to our citizens will also grow,” Mr Cameron wrote.

Britain introduced passenger screenings at its airports and Eurostar terminals, with France’s Charles de Gaulle airport following suit this weekend.

Flights suspended

While a number of airlines, including British Airways, have suspended flights to the affected areas in west Africa, Brussels Airlines and Royal Air Maroc are still operating direct flights to Sierra Leone, Liberia and Guinea. Thomas Eric Duncan, the Liberian national who died of Ebola in a Dallas hospital last month, travelled on a Brussels Airline flight from Liberia to Brussels en route to the US.

However, Belgium has not introduced passenger-screening measures at its main international airport. On Friday, Brussels Airport agreed to check baggage coming from Ebola-hit regions, following protests by baggage-handlers.

Last week EU health ministers meeting in Brussels agreed to increase co-ordination between member states on passenger screening, but concluded it was up to individual countries to decide whether to introduce screening.

Incubation

Britain, France, the US and Canada have introduced screening at airports since the outbreak, but some experts have questioned its effectiveness due to the incubation period of Ebola, which is typically between two and three weeks.

EU foreign ministers today are expected to discuss ways to co-ordinate “medevac” services between member states, to ensure that European medical staff can be evacuated from affected areas if needed. The issue is of particular concern to Ireland, which does not have its own “medevac” aircraft, despite sending medical volunteers to the area.

Discussion is also likely to focus on ways to increase support for affected regions, in a bid to reduce transmission rates and treat affected patients quickly.

“By far the best way of handling this virus is by treating at the point of origin,” said one senior EU source at the weekend. “If handled correctly, there is actually an 80 per cent survival rate for the virus. We must ensure that adequate resources are in place in the affected areas to avoid a wider transmission of the disease.”

Ahead of the meeting, Mr Flanagan noted that Ireland was one of a handful of European countries with embassies in Sierra Leone. “I will be inputting the views of our ambassador regarding the situation on the ground in Sierra Leone and the experience of Minister of State Seán Sherlock who recently visited the region.”