The delegate of the Government in La Rioja, Beatriz Arraiz Nalda, the Minister of Health of the Regional Executive, María Somalo San Juan, and the accidental head of the Civil Protection Unit of the Government Delegation in La Rioja, Javier Iribas Cardona, have this afternoon delivered the recognition diplomas granted by the General Directorate of Civil Protection and Emergencies of the Ministry of the Interior to the fifteen radio amateurs who have remained as uninterrupted collaborators for a period of 4, 10, 25 and 40 years in the National Radio Remer Emergency Network.
Arraiz Nalda has highlighted that as volunteer radio amateurs of the REMER they are always available for any action in which their presence is required and they fulfill the missions entrusted to them to protect the citizens.
Among other actions, volunteers have been required to address emergency situations by being part of an alternative communication system complementary to the networks used by the General Directorate of Civil Protection and Emergencies. “In this way, it is corroborated that you are a fundamental tool for the National Civil Protection System, since you guarantee that at all times there is an additional channel of communication to ensure the mobilization and coordination of resources and operations that act in an emergency,” he added.
REMER is constituted as an alternative state-level network and complementary to other communications networks used by the General Directorate of Civil Protection and Emergencies of the Ministry of the Interior.
This Network is regulated by Order INT/1149/2018, of 29 October, which regulates the organization and operation of the National Emergency Radio Network.
The REMER is composed of accredited radio amateurs for this purpose. The members of REMER are permanent voluntary collaborators of the National Civil Protection System and therefore comply with the rules established in each case and with the specific instructions provided by the General Directorate of Civil Protection and Emergencies. The collaborators will use their own means of radio communications for the fulfillment of the missions entrusted to them.
Objectives
- To create an alternative communication system complementary to the communication networks used by the General Directorate of Civil Protection and Emergencies. As such a communication system should allow the collection of relevant information on any emergency situation, and the transmission of messages to those recipients who, due to the characteristics of the emergency, do not have other operating means of communication.
- To form an operational structure that allows accredited radio amateurs to fulfill their citizen right and duty of collaboration in emergencies, voluntarily assuming the functions assigned to them as members of the REMER by the General Directorate of Civil Protection and Emergencies.
- To be constituted as a State capacity to support the National Civil Protection System, when deemed necessary.
Spanish radio amateurs have been participating with the Civil Protection of Spain since the 1960s, providing countless collaborations to this day. It is in 1982, when this collaboration is configured through the participation of several hundred radio amateurs, and it is what is known today as the Civil Protection Emergency Radio Network - REMER -, in which several thousand collaborating radio amateurs are integrated, framed and permanently structured under an action plan called Plan Mercurio.
The organization of the REMER has allowed the Network’s collaborators and those responsible for Civil Protection to coordinate efforts in emergency situations, with effective results in the actions they have had to face over the years.