At its July plenary session, the European Committee of the Regions (CoR) adopted an opinion on the revision of the Union Civil Protection Mechanism (UCPM), drafted by Adam Banaszak, European Alliance (EA) Coordinator in the NAT Commission. The opinion welcomes the Commission’s proposal to strengthen Europe’s preparedness for increasingly frequent natural disasters, health emergencies and security threats, while stressing that local and regional authorities must be fully involved in disaster prevention, preparedness and response, as they are the first responders in most crises.
The CoR calls for adequate and accessible funding to reach the local level, stronger cooperation between all levels of government, and further development of rescEU through expanded strategic reserves, resilient supply chains and improved crisis response capacities. The opinion also highlights the importance of involving civil society, integrating mental health into emergency preparedness, and ensuring that regional and local health authorities play a central role in strengthening Europe’s resilience to future crises.
“Europeans rightly expect the European Union to play a stronger role in protecting them from the growing risks posed by climate change, natural disasters and an increasingly complex geopolitical environment. Building a more resilient Europe starts at the local level. Local and regional authorities must be fully involved in shaping resilience strategies and have direct access to EU funding to turn preparedness into concrete action for our communities,” he said.
The opinion clearly underscores the importance of recognising diverse territorial contexts—such as outermost, island, border, and war-adjacent regions—and calls for sufficient flexibility in Union disaster resilience goals to ensure they can be effectively tailored to regional and local realities.