EU plans to build firefighting fleet faster after summer of climate crises

After the summer's wildfires in Europe, the European Union and its member countries agreed on Monday (5 September) to accelerate plans to create an EU fleet firefighting aircraft.

The wildfires that erupted this summer forced thousands of Europeans from their homes and businesses to be evacuated. This is part of an increasing trend due to climate change, which increases the heat and dry conditions that fuel fires, making them spread faster, more intensely, and burn longer.

Portugal, Greece, and other southern European countries experience large-scale fires in the summers. However, Germany and the Czech Republic were also affected by these fires. Hotter temperatures have pushed fire risk northwards into less prepared countries.

Janez Lenarcic (EU's head for crisis management) stated that the European Commission met Monday with ministers from EU countries to discuss the possibility of an advanced purchase of EU-funded Helicopters.

"We have exceeded our European capacity limit," Lenarcic stated. Lenarcic explained that some of the overwhelming fires in certain member states didn't result in a request for assistance, as the concerned countries knew that no capacity would be available.

The purchase of helicopters will be contingent on additional EU funds being approved in the bloc's budget for 2023. This is a potentially difficult request as EU countries struggle to find money to support citizens and industries hit by rising inflation and to invest in energy infrastructure in order to get rid of Russian gas.

Although the EU had planned to purchase a fleet of emergency-response aircraft in response to climate-related emergencies, production was delayed until the second half.

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The EU's emergency resources include funding and co-funding the deployment of twelve firefighting aircrafts and a helicopter that is shared by EU countries.

EU countries are responsible to respond to forest fires and can request EU assistance when they require it. This year, the bloc received 11 requests of assistance, compared to nine in 2021.