The European Parliament appealed to the European Commission for more funds to help flood victims from the Solidarity Fund

European Parliament voted on Thursday on a resolution calling on the European Commission to increase funds for flood relief and to better prepare the EU to respond to natural disasters.

In the document, MEPs expressed dissatisfaction with recent budget cuts in the EU's civil protection mechanism and called on the Commission to ensure sufficient resources and make the financing system more flexible for victims of natural disasters, including floods. This financing would also be included in the next multiannual EU budget.

MEPs want the EU's Solidarity Fund to be “commensurate with the growing number and severity of natural disasters in Europe” and for the EC to speed up the release of funds for flood-hit countries, such as Poland.

The European Parliament also appealed to the EC to agree to shift technical support and funds for flood relief from other EU instruments, including cohesion policy and national reconstruction plans. Thus, cohesion policy funds could be invested in infrastructure, equipment, personnel and technical assistance for local authorities in regions at risk.

As PO MEP Bogdan Zdrojewski explained on Wednesday, it would not only be about changing the purpose of spending, but also about the possibility of shifting money between regions – in this case, for example, from regions that were not affected by the flood to areas destroyed as a result.

In the long term, politicians called on the Commission to invest in increasing the Union's resilience and response capacity to natural disastersboth at regional and local levels. They also stressed the need for urgent investments in flood management and flood risk prevention measures.

When it comes to the EU's climate policy, MEPs called on the EC to present a European adaptation plan climate changeincluding concrete legislative proposals, as announced by the President of the European Commission, Ursula von der Leyen, in her political plan for 2024-2029.

“EU policy must adapt to the fact that crises are and will continue to increase. The next decade will be the most difficult for the EU's regions, cities and rural areas, as disasters are on the rise. The EU should set itself a new goal – zero deaths from natural disasters,” commented Bulgarian MEP Andrei Novakov, EPP Group spokesman on regional development, after the vote.

In recent days, heavy rains have caused devastating floods in Central and Eastern Europe. The worst affected areas are in Czech RepublicPoland, Austriaon SlovakiaIn Germany and on Hungary. In Poland, flooding affected the southern and western parts of the country. The most dramatic situation is in Lower Silesia and Opole.

Over the last 30 years alone, floods in Europe have affected 5.5 million people, killing almost 3,000 and causing economic losses of over €170 billion.