We are living in an increasingly fragile world. The frequency and intensity of natural disasters has increased dramatically over the recent decades. Last year alone brought massive floods in Australia, Thailand, and Pakistan, devastating earthquakes in Japan and New Zealand as well as famine at the Horn of Africa. The tsunami that hit Japan showed the vulnerability even of the most highly developed countries. And we should never think that Europe is in some way immune from natural disasters. Between 1999 and 2009, 100,000 Europeans were killed by natural disasters that cost the European economy €150 billion. Experience shows that the effective implementation of disaster management policies leads to fewer deaths and less damage. In 2009, the Lisbon Treaty gave the EU important new responsibilities in this area: most notably a formal legal base to both humanitarian and civil protection policies. At the operational level, the European Commission brought together its humanitarian aid and civil protection instruments in an expanded DG ECHO in 2010. This has resulted in a single delivery platform that can deploy assistance immediately and in a coherent manner. Making this portfolio the responsibility of a single European Commissioner has also ensured a higher political visibility for disaster management inside the EU system.