“Europe is ready to help.” Those were the words of Ursula von der Leyen the day after DANA destroyed municipalities in eastern Spain and claimed the lives of at least 211 people. A week later, the European Commission continued to insist that it is “ready” to “provide assistance” to the Spanish authorities. But what can the EU do? On the one hand, it makes the Civil Protection Mechanism available to member states to send operational resources that can be used at the time of emergency and that have been requested this Friday. On the other hand, in the medium term, the Solidarity Fund is available to channel financial aid to address the damage caused by natural disasters. And a lifeline: the relaxation of fiscal discipline.
Pedro Sánchez has already announced the request for financial aid to face the reconstruction through the EU Solidarity Fund, which in Brussels has already anticipated that they will disburse a part for the incidents in the Valencian Community or Castilla-La Mancha. To make the claim, Spain has twelve weeks since the first damage occurred and must present a balance sheet that the European Commission subsequently analyzes and decides what amount to deliver to the affected country, based on the damage and the remaining budget in the country. fund, which reaches 1.4 billion annually.
For the moment, the president of the Generalitat, Carlos Mazón, has demanded 31.4 billion from the central government to face the catastrophe. Sánchez, for his part, has announced measures worth 10.6 billion. In the absence of a definitive balance sheet, the damage caused by DANA therefore far exceeds the EU’s annual budget for this type of natural disaster. According to the data available from the European Commission – updated in January of this year – 7,689 million have been contributed since 2002.
The money can be used to restore functioning infrastructure in the areas of energy, water and wastewater, telecommunications, transport, healthcare and education; provide temporary accommodation and finance rescue services to meet the needs of the affected population; ensure preventive infrastructure and cultural heritage protection measures; or cleaning of areas affected by the disaster, including natural areas.
The largest disbursement through the EU Solidarity Fund occurred to deal with the earthquakes that Italy suffered between August 2016 and January 2017: 1,196 million for estimated damages of 21,879 million, that is, just over 5 % of the total. Italy is the country that leads by far the ranking of money received from that fund: 3,025 million for twelve catastrophes (from earthquakes to floods). Greece is the country that has received it the most times: a total of thirteen (earthquakes, floods, fires and a cyclone), although the amount is limited to 151 million.
100 million for six catastrophes in Spain
The largest catastrophe in terms of economic damage was recorded in the floods in Germany in July 2021 and reached 29,213 million euros. On that occasion, 612 million euros were disbursed from the EU solidarity fund (barely 2% of the total).
In the case of Spain, it has received 100 million euros to face six catastrophes in the last two decades. The last incident was the eruption of the La Palma volcano, which left damage of 1,000 million euros and the EU contributed, through the Solidarity Fund, 9.45 million. In the 2019 DANA, which left damage of 2,269 million, 56.7 million were received. In the case of the Lorca earthquake, the EU contributed 21.1 million to help with reconstruction valued at 843.
Due to the floods in Poland last September, Ursula von der Leyen proposed making the cohesion policy or Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) funds more flexible. “The proposed changes will offer Member States more flexibility to use part of the Cohesion Policy Funds to repair infrastructure and equipment damaged by climate-related disasters, provide food and basic material assistance, ensure access to healthcare for all and temporarily support the financing of short-time work schemes in a more flexible way. The proposal would increase the pre-financing percentage so that the managing authorities can access the liquidation more quickly, and the EU budget could finance up to 100% of the costs,” say sources from the European Commission.
Among the items to which Sánchez has referred are the European Regional Development Fund (ERDF), which for the period 2021-2027 has allocated a total amount of 226 billion euros, and the European Social Fund Plus (ESF+), the main instrument aimed at investing in people and supporting the application of the European pillar of social rights and endowed with a budget of 142.7 billion euros, Europa Press reports.
In addition to reallocating cohesion funds or the recovery plan to the reconstruction of the areas most affected by the damage caused by DANA, the European Commission has opened up to making fiscal rules more flexible. “The European Commission will continue to provide all necessary support to Spain in this difficult situation. This also concerns the fiscal rules,” explained the economic vice president, Valdis Dombrovskis. The new fiscal restraint that the EU agreed to earlier this year, after four suspensions to allow expansive spending to overcome the pandemic crisis and the war in Ukraine, provides for “provisions on important events that are beyond the control of the Government.” These clauses give a certain margin, therefore, so that extraordinary expenses do not count as a deficit.
Request for resources a week later
This Friday the authorities have requested extra help from the European civil protection mechanism. The complaint of many of the residents affected by the incident that there is not enough machinery to proceed with the necessary cleaning tasks has forced the Valencian Generalitat to request it through the Government of Spain.
The Ministry of the Interior has requested one hundred high-capacity pumping equipment and 50 Technical Assistance and Support (TAST) experts to intervene in the Valencian regions affected by DANA.
This tool has been activated 700 times since its implementation in 2001. One of the last was in September at the request of Poland and the Czech Republic, which claimed they requested dehumidifiers and mechanisms for water treatment that were sent to them by other countries, such as Germany or Sweden.
Community sources explain that Spain has already requested this mechanism in the past to stop fires. Among the means offered by EU partners are supplies such as first aid kits, shelter and firefighting equipment, water pumps, electricity generators and fuel.
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