What is our strongest natural defense? It is our immune system. Today, we are enhancing Europes immune system with two new strategies on stockpiling and medical countermeasures.

We know the threats we face, and we know we can handle them — hybrid attacks, power blackouts, extreme weather, and spreading diseases. These are no longer distant risks. That is why we are moving preparedness from the sidelines to the frontline of our defense.

We initiated this a few months ago with our EU Preparedness Strategy. Now, we are already putting it into action with todays Stockpiling and Medical Countermeasures Strategies.

Over the past 7 months, I have traveled across Europe — and around the world — to see how different countries prepare for emergencies.

What struck me most is that the more prepared people are, the calmer and more confident they feel. I saw this first-hand in Sweden, where being prepared is a way of life. Everyone knows what to do in an emergency. It gives people peace of mind.

So the takeaway is simple: the more we prepare, the less we panic. You don’t wait for a car accident to put on your seatbelt. Wearing your seatbelt gives you a sense of security. If you know your car has airbags, you feel even more protected in case of an accident.

In Sweden, their motto is “just in case.” But “just in time” — that is yesterdays thinking. That is exactly why we are reinforcing our European security with these two new strategies.

Our Stockpiling Strategy is a first for the EU — the first time we are taking a truly European approach to stockpiling.

The goal is simple: to ensure that the essential supplies that keep our societies running — especially those that save lives — are always available. We will achieve this through smarter planning, stronger cooperation, and by sharing responsibility for our collective safety. Less fragmented and reactive, and more coordinated and proactive.

This strategy covers every step in the stockpiling cycle, starting with anticipating risks and identifying gaps, then pooling our resources so we don’t duplicate efforts.

We don’t need a fleet of Canadair airplanes in every Member State, for instance. What we need is a system where these assets can be deployed quickly, wherever and whenever they are needed.

Through smart coordination and strategic placement, we will be more efficient, more effective, and save taxpayer money.

We also need strategic warehouses, and fast, reliable transport and logistics. For that, we need to boost civil-military cooperation. We know that civil-military cooperation works. During Covid, the military played a key role in evacuating critically ill patients, and during extreme floods and wildfires, the military has stepped in to save lives.

We are also getting the private sector more involved. We will work with European companies in every Member State to ensure essential supplies, like food, water, medicines, masks, and testing kits, are ready when we need them.

We are also stepping up coordination among Member States — and with the EU — through a new EU Stockpiling Network. Joint procurement, for example, ensures that all Member States, no matter their size, can get critical supplies at affordable prices.

In fact, this network brings together, for the first time, all national stockpiling authorities across the EU to coordinate better, learn from each other, and build the trust we need in a crisis.

Trust is the super glue that holds it all together. And transparency is what helps us see clearly what we have, what we are missing, and where we need to act. This transparency and trust will ensure our material preparedness — this is what stockpiling is all about.

In response to past threats, we have already started building up our stockpiles through RescEu. In 2017, Europe experienced its worst wildfire season in history. This was a turning point. We therefore created rescEU to pool our firefighting planes and helicopters and to strategically position them to cover high-risk areas.

And it is not just in the skies. During the summer, we strategically pre-position firefighters from across Europe in wildfire-prone areas, like Greece, Portugal, Spain, Italy, and France.

The lessons from Covid-19 — and the concerns shared by so many of our citizens — have also made one thing clear: medical countermeasures must be a top priority. That is why this is the first concrete deliverable of our Stockpiling Strategy. Medical countermeasures are especially complex to stockpile, but to stockpile a vaccine or treatment, it first needs to exist.

Our Medical Countermeasures Strategy takes a comprehensive, end-to-end approach to protecting peoples health — from identifying threats and supporting innovation to scaling up production and ensuring access when it matters most.

It all starts with knowing the threats we face and being able to spot them early. That is why we are working with Member States to build a new EU Wastewater Sentinel System. It will act like an early warning radar, detecting infectious diseases before symptoms appear, giving us valuable time to act.

We are also ramping up support for innovation by launching a Medical Countermeasures Accelerator. We all remember the long, hard months during Covid, waiting as vaccines and treatments were developed. In the next crisis, we want to shorten that wait as much as possible.

That is why we are supporting our innovators — like the ones I recently met at our HERA Industry Days — so that their promising ideas can move faster from the drawing board to the delivery truck. We are also doubling our support for dynamic SMEs and start-ups, by expanding HERA Invest to 200 million euros by 2027.

We are turning “Made in Europe” into “Ready in Europe.”

We have also developed a dedicated stockpiling strategy for medical countermeasures, taking a flexible approach tailored to specific risks. A recent example is the 2024 Paris Olympics, where we pre-positioned emergency medical kits, protective equipment, and mobile detection tools to temporarily reinforce national capacity at a high-profile event with millions of people.

But none of this works without people.

Our researchers, manufacturers, doctors, nurses, and caregivers – they are at the heart of our preparedness. They need the right skills and expertise to tackle todays health challenges. People also need clear, inclusive, and honest information — that is how we will build a bond of trust.

Today we are reinforcing Europes protective shield in a more unpredictable world. We are making preparedness our new European way of life — to keep people safe, healthy, and confident for the future.