According to the Commission’s response, the EU had earlier provided local firefighting units with Copernicus satellite imagery at Serbia’s request, showing that some form of cooperation with European civil protection bodies does exist, just not through the formal Mechanism that involves mobilizing equipment and personnel from other member states.
What Dacic and Vucic said earlier
Interior Minister Ivica Dacic said on August 19 that the EU’s mechanisms do not include a firefighting plane with the capacity of the Russian Ilyushin, framing the absence of a request to Brussels as a matter of technical necessity rather than choice. President Aleksandar Vucic had said three days earlier, on August 16, that Serbia could count on help from both European mechanisms and Russia, but that at the time he judged it was not needed.
The Commission’s response does not directly dispute the Interior Ministry’s claim about the plane’s capacity, but it does confirm that no formal request, regardless of what equipment might have been offered, was ever sent.
The opposition’s question
The Green Left Front’s health working group warned on August 19 that prolonged exposure to smoke causes eye and throat irritation, coughing and chest tightness, and the party used that warning to put a question to the authorities.