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Brussels – The presidents of Valencia, Castilla-La Mancha, Catalonia, and Andalusia joined their voices this Wednesday in Brussels to ask the European Union to speed up aid to rebuild the areas affected in Spain by the dana.
The Valencian Carlos Mazón, the Castilian-Manchegan Emiliano García-Page, the Catalan Salvador Illa, and the Andalusian Juanma Moreno Bonilla made this request during a special session convened by the European Committee of the Regions (CoR), which opened its session with a minute of silence in tribute to the victims of the floods, which caused more than two hundred deaths.
Both the popular Mazón and Moreno and the socialists Illa and García-Page thanked for the “enormous flow” of European solidarity received and called in the plenary held in the hemicycle of the European Parliament for emergency funding to cope with the million-dollar damages and a greater focus on adaptation to climate change.
The floods in Spain at the end of October caused the death of 227 people, and 8 people remain missing. Valencia was by far the most affected, with 219 dead.
Solidarity and aid
In his telematic intervention from Valencia, Mazón called for the “solidarity” of the European Union so that Valencia can recover “as soon as possible” from the dana that has affected thousands of people since last October 29.
The president of the Generalitat emphasized that Spain “needs one of the regions with the most potential in the Mediterranean to get back on its feet as soon as possible.” “We need all the actions that can be developed, all the resources that can be mobilized,” he said.
Similarly, the president of Castilla-La Mancha asked in the plenary for the European Union to accelerate the implementation of aid mechanisms.
“We come to claim that help and also to ask that in the set of reflections of the European Union on the flexibility of funds, on those that affect us, cohesion funds, New Generation funds, regional funds, flexibility can also be established for the implementation of mechanisms for speed in emergencies,” said García-Page.
He explained that “there is a European competition fund that must be launched, but there is also the possibility of opening up to these solutions through other mechanisms.”
Resilience to climate change
The president of the Generalitat of Catalonia requested, for his part, to strengthen cooperation mechanisms between different administrations, at local, regional, state, and European levels; while defending the role of “strong public services” to efficiently address emergencies.
Among the lessons that can be drawn from the “tragic episodes” of the dana, Illa said in the plenary that “addressing climate change is not an option, but our duty” and added: “Every day we see consequences of denialist discourses.”
In this regard, the president of the Junta de Andalucía advocated for a EU that strengthens the action and financial capacity of the regions to address the climate crisis and make them more resilient.
“It is necessary to maintain, strengthen, and generate the capacity of the regions to act, their competencies and their financial endowment, precisely to be able to provide them with more support and equip them with greater response capacity against the risks that derive for society and the environment from climate change,” indicated Moreno Bonilla in a connection from Baku, where he attends COP29.
And it is not only Spain that has been affected by the damage caused by climate disasters in recent times, but massive floods and wildfires recurrently strike Europe, as highlighted in the plenary session by the president of the CoR, Vasco Alves Cordeiro.
“The worst natural disaster that has struck Spain in a century represents a tragic reminder of the challenge that the climate crisis poses to us all,” said Alves Cordeiro.
The president of the CoR emphasized, therefore, the importance of cohesion policy funds to boost resilience and develop adaptation measures at the local level.
In this sense, the CoR plans to adopt an urgent resolution this Thursday to ask the European Commission to propose immediately “real additional resources” for the affected regions and to allocate more funds to strengthen preparedness and resilience in the next EU multiannual budget.
This special session of the institution representing the EU’s regional and local entities concluded with a live performance of the “Ode to Joy” from Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony performed by the European Union Youth Orchestra. (November 20)
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