To better combat forest fires and prepare for the next season, the EU will double its reserve air assets next year by purchasing “ten light amphibious aircraft and three additional helicopters to complement our fleet”.
The President of the European Commission, Ursula von der Leyen, announced this, on Wednesday 14 September in her State of the Union Address, as a “short-term” measure that is essential to “be better equipped” to show “solidarity” to preserve nature and to adapt to climate change.
The day before, a majority of MEPs had called for increased efforts to combat climate change, in light of the summer’s extreme weather events (see EUROPE 13020/4).
Recalling that the EU’s civil protection mechanism had enabled solidarity between Member States this summer, she said that “no country can cope alone"” with events “that are becoming more frequent and more intense”.
The support of the Member States has been secured. Last week, their ministers and directors-general for civil protection and the European Commission reached an informal consensus on the need to strengthen the RescEU fire-fighting equipment pool to improve the EU’s prevention and response capacity to forest fires 2023 (see EUROPE 13014/12).
“The summer of 2022 will be remembered. We have all seen the dry rivers, the burning forests, the extreme heat. And the situation is even more serious. Until now, the glaciers of the Alps have served as an emergency reserve for rivers such as the Rhine or the Rhone. But with Europe’s glaciers melting faster than ever, future droughts will be much more severe. We must work tirelessly on climate adaptation and make nature our first ally”, said Ms von der Leyen.
To this end, she said, “the EU will push for ambitious agreements” at the COP15 on biodiversity (Montreal, 5-17 December) and the COP27 on climate (Sharm el-Sheikh, 7-18 November).
Link to the Commission’s Letter of Intent: https://aeur.eu/f/32e (Original version in French by Aminata Niang)