Madrid is pressing Brussels to treat climate adaptation as a core economic and security priority, arguing that Europe can no longer rely on reactive measures as extreme weather becomes more frequent and costly. In two documents seen by Euronews, Spain urges the European Commission to give its upcoming climate resilience strategy real teeth, after a summer marked by deadly heatwaves, wildfires and drought.
The Spanish government wants climate risks to be systematically factored into public investment, infrastructure and planning, rather than assessed as a box-ticking exercise after decisions have already been made. It is also proposing a dedicated European Climate Adaptation Fund and floating new EU revenue sources, including a tax on oil and gas profits, while leaving the door open to common European debt instruments.
A summer of devastation
The consequences of inaction across the continent have been severe. Excess deaths linked to heatwaves in Europe reached roughly 30,000, according to national health data and the EuroMOMO mortality monitoring platform. More than 600,000 hectares have burned across the EU this year, more than twice the long-term average over the past two decades, according to the European Commission.
Drought in the Danube forced the shutdown of nuclear power plants in Hungary and Romania, while low water levels in the Rhine disrupted trade. The economic damage from wildfires alone is estimated at between €50 billion and €70 billion, according to Climate Action Commissioner Wopke Hoekstra.
“Our proposal puts forward a comprehensive approach to anticipating and assessing climate risks, integrating resilience into planning and investment decisions, strengthening our collective response to emergencies, and creating the necessary financial conditions to drive adaptation across Europe,” reads a letter sent by Spain to Hoekstra.
Sara Aagesen, Spain’s Minister for the Ecological Transition and the Demographic Challenge, said: “There are no solutions without a good diagnosis, so we propose to the European Commission to carry out a risk analysis at the European, national and regional levels into planning and all investment decisions.”
Binding targets and tougher rules
Madrid wants the upcoming EU strategy to include binding adaptation targets, initially focused on exposed areas such as water, health, infrastructure, agriculture and biodiversity. It also wants to expand the existing principle that any economic activity, investment or project must not cause substantial damage to the environment to include a resilience component, so that future climate risks are accounted for from the outset.
To improve preparedness, Spain proposes turning the existing EU civil protection mechanism, rescEU, into a permanent EU climate emergency response mechanism, potentially including a shared firefighting fleet, common disaster-response equipment, data systems and emergency protocols.
Funding the transition
The most politically sensitive part of the Spanish plea is likely to be how to pay for climate adaptation. Environmental groups have criticised the Commission’s decision to cut previous EU funding for nature, the LIFE programme, and to use money from the European Competitiveness Fund instead.
With sensitive talks ongoing on the EU’s next multi-annual budget covering 2028-2034, Spain is warning that climate resilience is as much an environmental issue as a security and competitiveness one. The Irish Presidency, currently leading discussions among EU countries, is expected to propose a new compromise text on the budget by mid-October, when EU leaders gather in Brussels for the European Council summit.
The Spanish push comes amid broader debates about the EU’s role in climate action. As the bloc prepares its resilience strategy, the question of funding remains central. Spain’s willingness to consider new EU-level charges, including on oil and gas profits, signals a shift towards more ambitious fiscal tools. Whether other member states will follow remains to be seen, but the summer’s events have made the case for action harder to ignore.
