In a special debate on the devastating floods in Central and Eastern Europe, the ECR Group called for more concrete and effective measures to prevent the consequences of climate change, such as heavy rain and heat and other extreme weather events.

According to Waldemar Buda, ECR coordinator in the Committee on Regional Development, “the implementation of polders or reservoirs, for example, is often hampered by overly complicated regulations and the possibility of being blocked by interest groups. The European Parliament should ask the Commission to present a concrete plan: how much, for whom, by when and what measures will be taken. Such concrete measures do not exist and people expect them”.

According to the Conservative MEP, the EU should, for example, make money available from the Solidarity Fund. “Climate change is inevitable. We need to build the infrastructure, not make it harder to build, which is what politics is about today,” said Buda, who is also the ECR’s negotiator on the Parliament’s joint resolution to be voted on Thursday. “The Green Deal policy has basically blocked investment that would help today,” he concluded.