European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen has called on the European Union to overhaul its civil protection systems to cope with a new reality of overlapping and intensifying emergencies, as an unusually early wildfire season stretched national firefighting capacities to their limits.
"We must be prepared for a world where extreme events happen more often, in more places, and at the same time," von der Leyen told reporters on Monday at the European Emergency Response Centre, the Commission's civil protection hub in Brussels. She acknowledged that climate change is making extreme weather more volatile, and that crises can now strike simultaneously, overwhelming individual countries.
The warning comes as Europe experiences its fourth heatwave since May, with wildfires forcing the evacuation of roughly 300,000 people this summer, according to Humanitarian Aid and Crisis Management Commissioner Hadja Lahbib. Speaking alongside von der Leyen, Lahbib stressed the urgency: "We have a good strategy, but we need to step up because climate change is not knocking at the door, it's inside the room. It's inside Europe, unfortunately, we are the fastest warming continent."
From response to prevention
The EU's civil protection mechanism has been activated ten times for wildfires since April, with nearly 800 firefighters pre-positioned in high-risk areas and teams from 25 countries deployed during the summer. More than 600,000 hectares have burned across the bloc this year—more than double the long-term average over the past two decades.
Von der Leyen argued that simply mobilising resources after fires, floods, or earthquakes strike is no longer sufficient. The Commission wants to shift the focus from responding to disasters to preventing them, strengthening preparedness, and improving anticipation. Each crisis, she said, should feed lessons into better planning and earlier intervention.
But financing climate adaptation remains a major challenge. EU governments are under pressure to reduce spending, and tensions are mounting as talks resume on the bloc's proposed long-term budget for 2027–2034. Germany, Austria, Denmark, Finland, the Netherlands, and Sweden are pushing for cuts.
In a recent interview with Euronews, Climate Action Commissioner Wopke Hoekstra acknowledged the tight fiscal situation but insisted that upfront investment is cheaper than repeatedly paying for climate damage. "All evidence shows that making the upfront investments is way cheaper than just being hit by fire, being hit by floods and then paying for the damage. That's just way more costly," he said.
Beyond natural disasters
The EU's approach to civil protection is also broadening to include hybrid threats. Floods, wildfires, and other extreme-weather events now sit alongside cyberattacks, sabotage of critical infrastructure such as energy networks and hospitals, and other disruptive actions that do not resemble conventional military attacks.
This shift reflects a growing recognition that Europe must be ready for multiple crises unfolding at once. The Commission's recent focus on preparedness has been echoed by calls from eastern EU commissioners, who have urged von der Leyen to take urgent action over growing Russian threats to the Baltic states, including by creating a new high-level coordinator for the region. That push is part of a broader debate about the EU's role in security and defence, as seen in proposals from Berlin and Paris to centralise foreign policy under the Commission president.
For now, the immediate challenge is financial. As the EU debates its next long-term budget, the question of how to fund preparedness—both for climate disasters and hybrid threats—remains unresolved. Von der Leyen's message is clear: Europe cannot afford to wait for the next emergency to act.
