“Over the last few days, almost two million people have been exposed to flooding in Central and Eastern Europe”, said the European Commissioner for Crisis Management, Janez Lenarčič, introducing a debate in the European Parliament on Wednesday 18 September.
The scale of the disaster is such that the Hungarian Prime Minister, Viktor Orbán, preferred to remain in Hungary. The planned debate on the priorities of the Hungarian Presidency of the EU Council was thus replaced by a debate on the effectiveness of the EU’s response to climate disasters.
More numerous disasters. Material and financial aid does exist, and some of it has been deployed over the last few days in Central Europe. The EU has shared maps through its Earth observation programme, Copernicus, to help national authorities monitor areas affected by flooding. “So far, one country, the Czech Republic, has mobilised the support mechanism” through which Member States can receive material aid, said the European Commissioner for Crisis Management. Financial aid from the EU Solidarity Fund comes only after the event.
As more and more extreme weather events become the norm, the EU is going to have to increase “its capacity to respond” and review “its level of preparation” upstream, admitted Janez Lenarčič, who pointed out that the European Commission is “working on the implementation of the ‘Floods’ Directive”.
Responsiveness. “It is unacceptable for the disaster victims that the EU’s intervention sometimes comes a year later”, deplored Younous Omarjee (The Left, French). In his view, the EU Solidarity Fund needs to be reformed “without delay”, even though identical discussions were held in 2021, following floods that caused “almost 300 deaths”.
This unpreparedness has a cost, stressed Terry Reintke (Greens/EFA, German), who pointed out that “human tragedies” caused by extreme weather events had cost “Member States €650 billion” between 1980 and 2022.
Combatting climate change. In this context, Valérie Hayer (Renew Europe, French) and Iratxe García Pérez (S&D, Spanish), like Younous Omarjee and Terry Reintke, stressed the need for a climate adaptation plan. “The faster we move forward with renewable energies, the more lives we will save”, said Ms García Pérez for example.
A joint motion for a resolution by the European Parliament’s political groups will be put to the vote on Thursday 19 September. On the same day, the President of the European Commission, Ursula von der Leyen, will travel to Wrocław, Poland, to discuss EU support measures for the floods caused by storm Boris with the leaders of the countries affected, according to the Polish government on Wednesday. (Original version in French by Florent Servia)