Speech by Commissioner Lahbib at the European Parliament on Wildfires and Enhancing Preparedness

This has been a record summer of wildfires across southern Europe, but is has also been a summer of action.

A “summer of solidarity”.

Year after year, we see how climate change makes disasters worse, including wildfires. The 2024 European Climate Risk Assessment ranked them among the top climate risks. Global warming makes extreme weather like this about 40 times more likely.

Not all regions are heating at the same pace — Europe is the fastest-warming continent. Since the 1980s, Europe has warmed at twice the global average. That means we must be more ready than ever for heatwaves and wildfires.

This years wildfires did not take us by surprise. The Commission took strong action to prepare for this summer. A team of wildfire experts were monitoring the situation hour by hour at our Emergency Response Coordination Centre.

The Commission also pre-positioned more than 670 firefighters from 14 European countries in Spain, Portugal, Greece, France, and Italy — ready to support local teams on the ground. Our wildfire fleet was ready for action. Our Copernicus Emergency Service stood ready to provide satellite images to member states.

Despite all this preparation, more than one million hectares burned in the EU by 3 September. This is over three times the 2006–2024 average for this time of year, the most since 2006. That is an area larger than Cyprus, or almost a third the size of Belgium. Spain and Portugal alone account for more than half of the destruction.

Since the start of the summer, the Union Civil Protection Mechanism has been activated 18 times to fight wildfires in Europe and beyond, including in Israel and Syria. Albania, Greece, and North Macedonia each called for help three times. Bosnia and Herzegovina, Cyprus, Bulgaria, Montenegro, Spain, and Portugal also relied on this support.

This has been a challenging summer for wildfires. But it has also been what I call the “Summer of Solidarity”. When one country calls, the European Union responds, united and in solidarity.

At the heart of this solidarity was the UCPM and its 24/7 Emergency Response Coordination Centre. Together, they deployed 58 aircrafts — 38 planes and 20 helicopters — and more than 740 firefighters and rescuers. I want to pay tribute to them, and to all those who lost their lives fighting the fires. My thoughts are with their families and colleagues. Their courage and dedication save lives, homes, and landscapes.

Our wildfire fleet showed once again that it is indispensable. Soon the EU will be equipped with its own fleet of 12 new planes and several helicopters. Copernicus provided its Rapid Mapping service 32 times to to guide operations in real-time.

This years wildfires send a clear message: we are improving, anticipating, preventing and responding better and quicker, but we must do much more on prevention and preparedness.

That is why, this spring, the Commission adopted the Preparedness Union Strategy — a forward-looking plan to make Europe better prepared for the crises of tomorrow.

It takes an all-hazards approach, embedding preparedness into every EU policy and strengthening cooperation across all levels of government and society. It will make our Emergency Response Coordination Centre more proactive and integrate Copernicus more closely into national early-warning and planning systems.

We are also strengthening rescEU, our strategic reserve of disaster response capacities and stockpiles. Originally created for wildfires, rescEU now responds to earthquakes, storms, floods — and supports Ukraine.

But to stay effective, it needs investment: fresh capacity, replenished stockpiles, and long-term readiness. As part of the Stockpiling Strategy, the Commission proposes to bring existing reserves together and explore new capacities where Europe can add the most value.

These efforts are part of the ongoing revision of the Union Civil Protection Mechanism, included in the MFF package. “Preparedness by design” is at the heart of the Preparedness Union Strategy. It means building preparedness into every policy area, including wildfires.

Preparedness investments will also be central to the new National and Regional Partnership Plans, part of the MFF proposal. Preparedness is now a core objective of the National and Regional Partnership Plans, giving Member States the chance to design tailor-made investments for their own needs.

Population preparedness is central to our Preparedness Union Strategy. It gives citizens, local communities, and vulnerable groups the knowledge and skills to prevent, respond, but also recover from wildfires. And the citizens, local communities and vulnerable groups bring their valuable expertise and skills to support societal preparedness and resilience.

This message from this summer is loud and clear: Europe must focus more on preventing wildfires before they start. We need more, well targeted investment and smarter policies to build fire-resilient landscapes. This is not only about forests and farmland. Whole ecosystems have been destroyed, biodiversity is under threat, and rural communities are left with deep and long-lasting scars.

The economic costs are also rising — lost crops, damaged infrastructure, disrupted livelihoods — all adding to the human suffering. That is why we are developing an ambitious European framework for climate resilience, to be adopted in the second half of 2026. It will set out how the EU will tackle the climate challenges ahead, supporting Member States, candidate countries, and our wider neighbourhood.

Preventing catastrophic wildfires will take both traditional investments in infrastructure and ecosystem-based strategies. Active management of high-risk areas — through measures like grazing or even controlled burning — can greatly reduce the risk of future fires. Nature restoration and wildfire prevention go hand in hand. We encourage Member States to integrate both in their landscape planning.

The primary responsibility lies with Member States. But the EU supports prevention through several funds — the Agricultural Fund for Rural Development, Cohesion Policy, and the Recovery and Resilience Facility. Together, these instruments help across the full disaster cycle: prevention, preparedness, response, and recovery.

According to the European Court of Auditors, at least €3.5 billion in EU funding has been allocated to tackle forest fires between 2021 and 2027, reducing the vulnerability of more than 130 million people.

Our Common Agricultural Policy, for instance, helps maintain landscapes that can resist and recover from wildfires, reducing losses. The EU also funds forest restoration and fire prevention through direct grants like the LIFE programme, research under Horizon Europe, and transition support via the Just Transition Mechanism. All of this is aligned with the European Green Deal and global biodiversity goals. Just as importantly, these efforts protect local economies and help revive rural areas.

The EU also shows solidarity after disasters, by helping Member States and candidate countries recover. This is the role of the European Union Solidarity Fund. It provides support when the total damage of a disaster exceeds the thresholds set out in the regulation. Since the creation of the Fund in 2022, four Member States have received assistance from the EUSF in relation to wildfires for a total amount of €151 million.

Reliable data on wildfire risk is essential for effective prevention and response. That is the main goal of the Commissions proposal for a Forest Monitoring Regulation. I urge you to support this proposal in your Plenary vote — they are vital for tracking and tackling wildfires.

Wildfires will remain a challenge, but we can still prepare better and reduce their impact to the minimum. With stronger prevention, smarter preparedness, and deeper solidarity, Europe can protect its people, its forests, and its future.