The European Union is likely to be provided with a firefighting fleet of 12 planes of the Canadair type until 2029, according to the information provided by the team of European Commissioner for Crisis Management, Janez Lenarcic.

The initiative for the European Union’s own fleet has been launched by Mediterranean member-states: Portugal, Spain, France, Italy, Croatia and Greece, Slovenian media outlets reported on Saturday.

Slovenia, which has been battling the largest ever wildfire in its western border region, has not been mentioned as part of this initiative.

During his visit to the fire-affected areas earlier this week, the Slovenian Commissioner Lenarcic, told the press that since this March the EC had been conducting negotiations with firefighting planes’ manufacturers and the plan is to procure at least two water bombers until 2026.

The procurement will enable the EU to have its own fleet of water aeroplanes.

Lenarcic admitted that in the summer wildfires were raging at the same time in several countries and this “is a huge burden on the national capacities ” when more and more requests were sent for aid from various fire-affected regions.