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"These extreme weather events that used to be once in a lifetime are now an almost annual occurrence," said Janez Lenarčič.
With the Portuguese government declaring a "state of calamity" over wildfires that have killed at least seven people, and the daily lives of hundreds of thousands of people in Central and Eastern Europe upended by deadly flooding, the European Union's top crisis official said the bloc must face the reality made evident by the disasters: "This is fast becoming the norm for our shared future."
A year after Europe was found to be the world's fastest-warming continent in an analysis by the World Meteorological Organization (WMO) and the E.U.'s Copernicus Climate Change Service (C3S), crisis management commissioner Janez Lenarčič told the European Parliament on Wednesday that "the global reality of the climate breakdown has moved into the everyday lives of Europeans."
"Make no mistake. This tragedy is not an anomaly," said Lenarčič. "We face a Europe that is simultaneously flooding and burning. These extreme weather events that used to be once in a lifetime are now an almost annual occurrence."
As countries including Poland, Romania, Austria, and the Czech Republic were reeling from flooding caused by Storm Boris in recent days, more than 478 square miles in Portugal's northern region were torched by fast-moving wildfires that started over the weekend.
Dozens of homes have been destroyed by more than 100 separate wildfires as officials deployed 5,000 firefighters to try to control the blazes on Wednesday. Spain, France, and Italy—which is now also preparing for heavy rainfall like the torrential downpour that inundated Central and Eastern Europe—contributed waterbombing aircraft.
Lenarčič focused his address largely on the need to ramp up disaster preparedness, noting that the rise in costs for repairing infrastructure destroyed by storms and fires has ballooned in recent decades.
"The average cost of disasters in the 1980s was 8 billion euros per year," said Lenarčič. "Meanwhile in 2022 alone, the damages surpassed 50 billion euros per year... The cost of inaction is far greater than the cost of action."
Lenarčič called on the European Commission to work closely with E.U. member states to implement the bloc's Floods Directive and a robust water resilience strategy to tackle catastrophic flooding and water shortages.
"Such challenges cannot be tackled solely through the limited portfolio of civil protection," the commissioner said.
The Left in the European Parliament, a coalition of progressive parties, echoed Lenarčič's call to strengthen civil protection, but also emphasized the need to tackle "climate change and its impacts."
Progressives in Parliament have pushed member states to meet the goals set by the European Green Deal, a set of climate policies aimed at ensuring net-zero fossil fuel emissions by 2050 and slashing emissions by at least 55% by 2030.
"Our success will depend on how determined we are to combat climate change together in order to reduce emissions," said Terry Reintke, a German lawmaker who is co-president of the Greens/European Free Alliance (EFA) group in the European Parliament.
With right-wing parties making significant gains in the bloc's parliamentary elections in June, analysts have said passing ambitious climate policies and targets will be more difficult.
Following the implementation of parts of the Green Deal, emissions are down by nearly a third from 1990 across the bloc, and member states are building wind and solar infrastructure. But right-wing leaders have pushed to block a ban on new gas- and diesel-powered cars that was set to take effect in 2035.
Far-right Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni said in June that the proposed ban "was an ideological folly, which absolutely must be corrected."
On Wednesday, Italy's civil protection service issued 50 yellow alerts for the Emilia-Romagna and Marche regions, warning that the areas would face the risk of landslides and flooding as they are expected to see the equivalent of two months of rainfall in the next three days.
The heavy rains have moved across Central Europe from parts of the Czech Republic, Austria, Romania, and other countries, with at least 21 people killed by flooding.
"The E.U. must do everything in its power to help those affected by the devastating floods in many different E.U. countries," said the Greens/EFA. "These floods show that more than ever our fight against climate change is a common social and economic challenge we must tackle together."
"Against this backdrop, it is clear that the prospect of a two-state solution—which we have been ritually repeating—is receding ever further while the international community deplores, feels, and condemns, but finds it hard to act."
European Union foreign affairs chief Josep Borrell on Tuesday urged the international community to stop "radical members of the Israeli government" from thwarting Palestinian statehood and prevent Israel from turning the illegally occupied West Bank into "a new Gaza."
Speaking to attendees of an Arab League conference in Cairo, Borrell lamented that a Gaza cease-fire agreement "has still not been signed and does not seem likely to be signed in the near future."
"Why? Quite simply, because those who are waging the war have no interest in putting an end to it," he continued. "So, they are just pretending... Because, as it turns out, their intransigence is accompanied by total impunity."
"If acts have no consequences, if blatant violation of international law remains disregarded, if institutions such as the International Criminal Court are threatened, if the International Court of Justice rulings are totally ignored by those who promote a rules-based order, who can be trusted?" Borrell asked.
"Not only is there no pause in the war in Gaza," he noted. "But what looms on the horizon is the extension of the conflict to the West Bank, where radical members of the Israeli government—Netanyahu's government—try to make it impossible to create a future Palestinian state."
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and members of his far-right government have openly
boasted about their efforts to derail the so-called "two-state solution," and Israeli lawmakers voted overwhelmingly in July to oppose the creation of a Palestinian state.
Borrell asserted that "a new front is being opened with a clear objective: to turn the West Bank into a new Gaza—in rising violence, delegitimizing the Palestinian Authority, stimulating provocations to react forcefully, and not shying away from saying to the face of the world that the only way to reach a peaceful settlement is to annex the West Bank and Gaza."
Since last October, Israeli soldiers and settler-colonists have killed more than 600 Palestinians in the occupied West Bank and East Jerusalem, including more than 140 children. Settlers have carried out more than 1,000 attacks including multiple deadly pogroms, during which Israel Defense Forces soldiers stood by, protected, and even joined the attackers.
"Without action, the West Bank will become a new Gaza," Borrell stressed. "And Gaza will become a new West Bank, as settlers' movements are preparing new settlements."
"Against this backdrop, it is clear that the prospect of a two-state solution—which we have been ritually repeating—is receding ever further while the international community deplores, feels, and condemns, but finds it hard to act," Borrell added.
"What can we do?" he asked, continuing:
We need to raise our voice at the next [United Nations General Assembly] and prevent a sort of "Gaza fatigue," which will embolden the extremists and postpone once again the idea of a political settlement. We have to launch a process where all parties who want to work on an agenda—a concrete and practical agenda to implement the two-state solution—can work together.
Second, we need to revitalize the Palestinian Authority to support their reform process, but also to support [them] financially.
Third, [we have] to facilitate all attempts at dialogue between Palestinians and Israelis.
Fourth, [we must] not give up on engaging with Israeli civil society, even in this context—and especially in this context. Everyone, not just the Europeans—Palestinians, and Arab civil society, must do it. I know how difficult it is to reconcile both narratives, but it is the only way to move forward...
Fifth, the Palestinians have to reach a common vision, to overcome their divisions, because the more these divisions exist, the more they undermine the legitimacy and representativeness of the Palestinians.
Sixth, the Europeans need to adopt a common approach. That is what I am working tirelessly on, even if the success is limited, because I have never seen such a dividing issue among the Europeans as the Israel-Palestine conflict.
Seventh, the Arab States need also to adopt a truly common approach [to] coordinating and showing solidarity.
"All in all, it means building a balance of power on realistic foundations for the two-state solution—before it becomes, definitely, too late," Borrell concluded. "I know, it is extremely difficult. However, we must never give up."
Last month, Borrell called for sanctioning Israeli leaders for hate speech and inciting war crimes in Gaza and the illegally occupied West Bank. He has also called for an arms embargo on Israel.
Israel is currently on trial for genocide at the International Court of Justice. Meanwhile, International Criminal Court Prosecutor Karim Khan is seeking to arrest Netanyahu, Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant, and three Hamas leaders—at least one of whom has been assassinated—for alleged war crimes and crimes against humanity.
Since October 7, when the Hamas-led attack on Israel left more than 1,100 people dead—some of them killed by so-called "
friendly fire"—and over 240 others kidnapped, Israeli forces have killed at least 40,988 Palestinians in Gaza, mostly women and children. At least 94,825 other Palestinians have been wounded. Almost all of Gaza's 2.3 million people have been forcibly displaced, while Israel's "complete siege" has starved and sickened people across the enclave, with dozens dying of malnutrition.
While welcoming the move, one Amnesty International campaigner asserted that "the E.U.'s call for a cease-fire and curbing settler violence rings hollow until it takes concrete action."
European Union foreign affairs chief Josep Borrell said Thursday that he has recommended sanctioning Israeli leaders for hate speech and inciting war crimes in Gaza and the illegally occupied West Bank.
Borrell said during a meeting of E.U. foreign ministers in Brussels that he has asked member states if they support imposing sanctions on some Israeli Cabinet ministers who have disseminated "unacceptable hate messages against the Palestinians" and have proposed "things that clearly go against international law" and amount to "an incitement to war crimes."
Israeli ministers should be sanctioned by EU for inciting hate and war crimes against Palestinians, says @JosepBorrellF. #Gaza #WestBank #Israel pic.twitter.com/9N0oz0tdCX
— Georg von Harrach (@georgvh) August 29, 2024
At least one E.U. member said it supports Borrell's recommendation.
"This is a war against Palestinians, not just against Hamas. The level of civilian casualties and dead is unconscionable," Irish Foreign Minister Micheál Martin said Thursday in Brussels. "It's a war on the population. No point in trying to fudge this."
"It cannot be business as usual," Martin added. "It is very clear to us that international humanitarian law has been broken."
Earlier this year, the Irish Senate voted to impose sanctions on Israel, prohibit the transfer of U.S. weapons to Israel via Ireland, and push for an international arms embargo against the country.
While E.U. nations such as Ireland, Spain, Norway, and Slovenia have been outspoken critics of Israel's Gaza onslaught and have responded with moves including recognizing Palestinian statehood, other members of the bloc—notably Germany and France—have been staunch supporters of Israel, even as its forces have killed and wounded more than 144,000 Gazans and displaced, starved, or sickened millions more.
Israeli Foreign Minister Israel Katz has threatened "severe consequences" for European nations that recognize Palestinian statehood.
Like the United States—Israel's biggest international backer—the E.U. has imposed sanctions on a handful of far-right Israeli individuals and groups, including extremist settler colonists who incited deadly West Bank pogroms and an organization whose members have blocked humanitarian aid shipments from entering Gaza.
While Borrell did not publicly identify specific Israeli ministers he believes should be sanctioned, he has recently condemned the words and actions of far-right figures including National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir and Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich.
Ben-Gvir was widely condemned for defending Israeli soldiers accused of gang-raping a Palestinian man detained at the notorious Sde Teiman prison and for taking part in a highly controversial visit to Islam's third-holiest site, the al-Aqsa mosque compound—which is located on what Jews call the Temple Mount, Judaism's most sacred site. Ben-Gvir infuriated Muslims and other critics by declaring he wanted to "put an Israeli flag" and build a synagogue there.
Smotrich, who has also defended the alleged Sde Teiman rapists as "heroic warriors," has drawn condemnation for promoting new and expanded Israeli settler colonies in the West Bank, a policy he attributed partly to increasing international recognition of Palestinian statehood and the International Court of Justice's (ICJ) recent ruling affirming that Israel's 57-year occupation is a form of apartheid and illegal.
Statements by Ben-Gvir and Smotrich—who recently asserted that it may be "justified and moral" to starve 2 million Palestinians to death—have been entered as evidence in the South African-led ICJ genocide case concerning Israel's war on Gaza.
Borrell has mentioned some of the ministers' words and actions in previous calls for accountability for those who incite hate and violence.
"While the world pushes for a cease-fire in Gaza, Minister Ben-Gvir calls for cutting fuel and aid to civilians," he said on social media earlier this month. "Like Minister Smotrich's sinister statements, this is an incitement to war crimes."
"Sanctions must be on our E.U. agenda," Borrell added.
While human rights defenders welcomed Borrell's sanctions recommendations, some groups urged him to go even further.
"The [ICJ's] findings clearly point to violations of international law committed by Israel and to the obligations of third states not to legitimize or provide any assistance to Israel's illegal conduct," Eve Geddie, director of Amnesty International's European Institutions Office, said on Thursday.
Geddie continued:
E.U. members states' supply of arms and equipment as well as their trade and investment with illegal Israeli settlements are enabling Israel's violations of international law and are contrary to their obligations under international law. There can be no business as usual with a state maintaining a brutal, unlawful occupation and perpetrating serious violations of international law, including war crimes and crimes against humanity, on a mass scale.
The relentless bombardment of Gaza amid a clear risk of genocide, the deadly spike in state-backed settler violence, and the latest military offensive in the West Bank are all byproducts of Israel's unlawful occupation and decades of impunity enabled by E.U. inaction.
"The E.U.'s call for a cease-fire and curbing settler violence rings hollow until it takes concrete actions—an immediate arms embargo, a ban on trade with Israeli settlements, and support for action at the U.N. to bring an end to Israel's unlawful occupation of the occupied Palestinian territory," Geddie added.