In a vote by show of hands at the plenary session in Strasbourg on Thursday 19 September, MEPs adopted a motion for a resolution on the devastating floods in Central and Eastern Europe, the loss of lives and the EU’s preparedness to act on such disasters exacerbated by climate change.
The previous day, during a debate on the subject, MEPs had expressed the need for the European Union to be more responsive and to implement a plan to adapt to climate change (see EUROPE 13485/1).
The Parliament said it felt “deep concern over the increasing intensity and frequency of extreme weather events in the EU and globally” and pointed out that floods had affected 5.5 million people in Europe over the last 30 years.
Civil protection. Faced with an increasing number of disasters, and given that extreme weather events have cost Member States “€650 billion” between 1980 and 2022, MEPs are calling for a strengthening of the Union Civil Protection Mechanism (UCPM) and regret “the budget cuts of EUR 37 million (in commitments) and EUR 154.9 million (in payments) for the UCPM”. In their view, the next Multiannual Financial Framework (MFF) should allocate more funds to them.
Financial support. Mobilised through the European Union Solidarity Fund (EUSF), financial aid must be provided more quickly, according to MEPs, who are calling for “immediate EU financial and technical assistance to be provided to the affected countries”, in particular through an emergency funding line to facilitate the swift recovery of the affected areas. To this end, the EU should ensure “adequate funding for EUSF under the next MFF”.
Regional policy. The resolution calls on the EU to do more to help less-developed regions, highlighting the differences in skills and infrastructure between Member States, and to invest more in regional resilience. To this end, MEPs are calling for cohesion policy to be made available for disaster prevention and response.
Adapting to climate change. While it is established that climate change mitigation must continue, the resolution calls for adaptation measures to be addressed from now on, and urges the Commission to present the plan it has drawn up for this purpose “as part of the 2024-2029 Political Guidelines”.
During a visit to Poland, the President of the European Commission, Ursula von der Leyen, announced exceptional measures on Thursday 19 September aimed at making the use of European cohesion funds less rigid in order to help Poland, Austria, the Czech Republic and Slovakia, which have been affected by storm Boris (see EUROPE 13486/15).
See the resolution adopted by the European Parliament: https://aeur.eu/f/di0 (Original version in French by Florent Servia)