EU urges to increase public preparedness for wars and natural disasters

Eight European Union (EU) countries have called on the bloc to urgently increase the preparedness of civilians for man-made and natural disasters amid the conflict in Ukraine and the recent power outages in Spain and Portugal, the Financial Times (FT) reported on May 22.

"We all know that the world around us is changing, that we are in a new geopolitical environment where the risk of crisis or even war is quite real. This requires a lot from us," Dutch Justice Minister David van Wil said in an interview with FT.

Van Wyl and his colleagues from the Baltic States, Belgium, Luxembourg and Finland met in Brussels to discuss how to increase the resilience of their countries. According to the minister, this group of states considers itself "probably more advanced" in this matter than countries that are less willing to follow their example, partly for fear of causing public discontent. The eight ministers called on the commission to speed up its work, including an analysis of the threats facing the continent.

The media notes that the initiative appeared after reports from European intelligence agencies about a possible major military conflict on the continent within 3-5 years. As noted in the article, this will worsen the threats associated with climate change, including floods and wildfires. According to van Wil, "if we prepare for the worst—case scenario - a military conflict, then it will be easier to cope with local disasters."

"We have seen again with the example of power outages in Spain and Portugal that it takes a long time before we get the overall picture of what happened. I think closer coordination across Europe could help," van Wyl said.

According to the Financial Times, in some EU countries, such an initiative has caused panic and speculation that "Europe is starting a war against Russia."

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The French newspaper Le Figaro reported on March 30 that high-ranking officials in Europe are preparing for a possible confrontation with Russia. The publication also cites the words of a senior French officer who believes that Europe needs to prepare for the worst, but without waiting for the outbreak of World War II, as this carries the risks of nuclear escalation.