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

H.whereas people living in affected areas suffer from severe stress as a consequence of the floods, potentially affecting their mental health and well-being or even causing post-traumatic stress syndrome after the event;

I.whereas natural hazards, including floods, cause millions of people to be displaced globally, and those numbers may increase due to increasing numbers of flood events in the future;

J.whereas soil plays a central role in avoiding catastrophic floods by absorbing and retaining water; whereas over 60 % of European soils are unhealthy, and scientific evidence shows that soil health is getting worse; whereas soil degradation in the EU, which already costs over EUR 50 billion per year, is mainly driven by unsustainable management of land, soil sealing, contamination and over-exploitation, combined with the impact of climate change and extreme weather events;

K.whereas the protection of nature is decisive in preventing weather-related disasters resulting from climate change; whereas mangroves, seagrass meadows and wetlands such as marshes and swamps are highly effective carbon sinks that absorb and store CO2; whereas floodplains and healthy forests, soils and moors, seas, wetlands and peatlands, and natural green areas in the city and in the countryside act as a buffer against the impact of climate change by retaining water and mitigating the effects of floods and droughts;

L.whereas cities play a crucial role in ensuring community resilience against floods; whereas involving local people in partnerships and designing water management measures will be essential, as those who own or manage land, as well as municipality and city authorities, can help to design measures as effectively as possible;

1.Conveys its deepest sympathy to and solidarity with the victims, their families and the people and communities affected by the ongoing extreme weather events and severe flooding in central and eastern Europe, including Austria, Czechia, Hungary, Poland, Romania and Slovakia, as well as those affected by the wildfires in Greece and Portugal;

2.Commends the tireless efforts and commitment of the professional and volunteer fire departments, rescue organisations, volunteers and the military in the countries affected by the floods and other natural disasters all over Europe, along with the national, regional, and local authorities, and members of the public who risked their lives to save others and protect homes and infrastructure; stresses the fact that the emergency services have played a crucial role in saving lives, evacuating vulnerable areas and protecting property in often difficult conditions, and that their tireless efforts and willingness to act, even at the risk of their own lives, have played a crucial role in containing the disaster; asks that every technical and financial effort be made to help those in the communities and regions affected to rebuild;

3.Expresses deep concern about the increasing intensity and frequency of extreme weather events in the EU, including extreme precipitation and large-scale floods, as well as heatwaves and wildfires, and their severe, direct impacts on human health, livelihoods, housing, infrastructure and economic sectors, including agriculture;

4.Believes that these extreme weather events show that climate change mitigation actions have come too late and have been insufficient; affirms the need to increase the ambition of the EU’s actions to reduce anthropogenic emissions responsible for climate change; calls for the 2030 climate and energy framework to be fully implemented; presses for a swift agreement on new, ambitious post-2030 targets; believes that all possible additional action should be taken to reduce anthropogenic emissions, such as phasing out fossil fuel subsidies, halting the extraction and use of fossil fuels and ramping up investment in renewable energy, accelerating the electrification of transport, and halting unsustainable agricultural practices;

5.Believes that the EU should step up its efforts to adapt to climate change; calls on the Commission to publish, as soon as possible, an ambitious climate adaptation law that would require and coordinate efforts for enhancing adaptation and resilience in line with the goals of the European Climate Law; believes that a climate adaptation law should set measurable targets related to water, health, infrastructure, the economy and spatial planning;

6.Calls on the Member States to invest in nature restoration projects which mitigate the effects of extreme events, such as rebuilding sponge landscapes for the retention of water, restoring rivers by removing man-made structures built to control or obstruct their flow, and afforesting land; calls on the Member States to fully implement the Nature Restoration Law; calls on the Commission to ensure that national projects contribute to resilience to droughts and floods and to propose new EU funding to support these projects; calls on the Member States to invest in better maintenance of infrastructure and flood mitigation systems;

7.Calls for more investment and cross-border management of rivers prone to floods by Member States and for the building of defences as massive systems of diversions, including levees, bunds, reservoirs and weirs that can be used to prevent rivers from bursting their banks;

8.Calls on all the Member States to update their flood prevention action plans to define, within flood risk areas, special hazard areas where no further construction would be permitted, to improve risk prevention and enhance civil protection;

9.Calls on the Member States to rely more on nature-based projects rather than building heavily engineered barriers, in order to create more space for rivers while simultaneously developing thriving estuary ecosystems;

10.Calls for the Member States to be supported in developing ‘sponge cities’ where, during heavy rain, the water seeps into many unsealed surfaces or flows into underground reservoirs;

11.Calls for a quick and thorough implementation of the Soil Directive, as well as of the Nature Restoration Law, especially regarding its measures concerning agricultural lands and rivers;

12.Calls for buildings to be adapted to withstand floodwaters, using the depth of foundations, structural design and construction materials that are chosen specifically to be able to handle extreme flooding;

13.Calls on the Member States to prioritise investment in preventive measures in agriculture and forestry to decrease susceptibility to flooding and drought; believes that clearcutting should be avoided so that landslides are prevented; believes that soil should be covered and fed by living roots all year round to prevent topsoil from being washed away; believes also that replanting should be resilient in term of soil cover and species variety;

14.Calls on the Member States to increase public awareness, through education campaigns where necessary, to teach the public how to react in extreme situations;

15.Calls on the Commission to put forward proposals to require the use of comprehensive early warning systems for extreme weather events in all Member States, covering both large and small rivers, with clear institutional responsibilities, and the pooling of capacities for mutual support in times of crisis;

16.Calls for the next multiannual financial framework (MFF) to provide more funding for disaster prevention and management, including through a larger EUSF and a larger European civil protection mechanism; calls for the next MFF to ensure that response mechanisms are flexible enough to accommodate unforeseen events, as these will occur more frequently in the future; recalls that the 2024 MFF review increased the solidarity and emergency aid reserve to a maximum annual budget of EUR 1.5 billion but that this annual allocation remains broadly insufficient compared to the needs on the ground;

17.Calls for the next MFF to provide increased funding for climate change mitigation and adaptation, including in relation to sustainable water management; calls for an increased budget allocation for the next programme for the environment and climate action (LIFE) and its climate mitigation and adaptation actions, as well as relevant measures under Pillar II of the common agricultural policy;

18.Underlines that cohesion policy is a fundamental and integrated policy framework to reduce developmental disparities between the EU regions and to help them address the multiple challenges to their development, including through environmental protection, high-quality employment and fair, inclusive and sustainable development; stresses in particular the role of the European Regional Development Fund (ERDF) programmes, in synergy with rural development programmes, in the prevention and mitigation of hydrogeological risks; calls on the Commission to propose, in the context of the next MFF, an ambitious reform of cohesion policy that not only preserves but strengthens its climate adaptation and mitigation strand, either by increasing the current 30 % and 37 % of funds earmarked for climate objectives in the ERDF and the Cohesion Fund, or by setting up a specific policy objective to tackle the consequences of natural disasters;

19.Considers that the improvement in the quantitative and qualitative capacity of local administration is pivotal for the achievement of the objectives enshrined in the climate and adaptation strategies and invites the Member States to increase multi-level cooperation between different levels of territorial governance;

20.Reiterates the need for a better synergy between the climate change adaptation component of the ERDF and territorial cooperation programmes, the EUSF and the EU civil protection mechanism;

21.Recommends that national, regional and local authorities ensure, when rebuilding critical infrastructure, including transport, healthcare, water and energy systems, that these systems are designed consistently with the ‘build back better’ approach, in order to withstand future extreme weather events;

22.Highlights the fact that the severity of some natural disasters is, in some cases, also the result of man-made factors, including incautious spatial planning that leads to the construction of housing and infrastructure on floodplains or in areas prone to landslides; reiterates, in this regard, that EUSF reimbursements should favour stronger resilience and sustainability, by financing ecosystem-based solutions (e.g. reforestation, habitat restoration, earthquake-proof reconstruction); invites the Commission, in the context of a future reform, to explore the possibility to (further) increase the level of advance payments and continue its work on simplifying how the EUSF is used, to ensure a swifter response to the intensification of natural disasters, especially at regional level;

23.Welcomes the activation, since 2022, of the reformed agricultural reserve; welcomes the annual allocation of EUR 450 million in the 2023-2027 period; warns, however, that the agricultural reserve was originally intended to support farmers undergoing market crises, not climate change crises, which means that, firstly, it is designed to dampen market disruptions, not actual ecological damage and, secondly, the scale of damage that can be expected from climate change will be far too severe for such a small fund to deal with;

24.Calls on the Commission to give climate adaptation and resilience a more central position in all EU policies and funding schemes;

25.Recalls the importance of rapid and solid damage assessment that takes due account of the economic repercussions and calls for increased operational efforts to be made in order to reduce the average time for the release of advance payments, while ensuring that the EU budget is protected; calls on the Member States to consider that climate risks disproportionately affect vulnerable populations because socio-economic factors further hamper the ability of vulnerable groups to recover from disasters; calls on the Member States to ensure that damage assessment is thorough and timely and that aid is allocated fairly; calls on the Commission, in cooperation with the EU and institutions in the Member States, to devise a way to distribute the necessary financial aid swiftly and provide other assistance to ensure a speedy recovery of the affected areas;

26.Calls on the Member States to provide emergency and long-term psychological counselling and support programmes to help communities, especially vulnerable groups, to recover emotionally from disasters; recalls that public health responses must address both physical and mental health needs;

27.Calls on the Member States to address the financial hardship for households, particularly low-income people, and for small and medium-sized enterprises, due to the rise in the price of insurance associated with the increase in flood risk;

28.Calls on the Member States to take measures to prevent house price collapse due to increased flood risk, via early implementation of flood protection measures and the management of flood risk perceptions;

29.Instructs its President to forward this resolution to the Council, the Commission and the governments and parliaments of the Member States.