The country has experienced and still experiences days of profound disruption, with human losses, serious material damage and significant damage to critical infrastructure. Storm Kristin also brought us the realization that the unpredictable has become part of our present. And this new context demands more than effective responses from us, it demands the ability to anticipate, plan and structured preparation. Prepare populations, strengthen local civil protection, communicate the risk clearly and make climate adaptation a transversal criterion in public decision-making.
This need is not exclusively Portuguese. The European Union recognizes that climate risks are evolving faster than our ability to respond. The most recent Preparedness Report, coordinated by Sauli Niinistö, highlights the urgency of strengthening European preparedness and adopting a transversal approach. But this is precisely where the central political challenge lies: populations do not expect reports, they expect answers. They expect speed, effectiveness and clarity. They expect institutions to be prepared when the worst happens. And the distance between the production of technical knowledge and the public perception of security continues to be too great, especially in areas such as civil protection.
The transversal approach advocated at European level points in this direction: linking prevention, response and recovery, articulating local, national and European scales. This is not about replacing existing responses, but about making them more coherent, more readable and closer to citizens. This is crucial in a country like Portugal, where many responses are played out in municipalities. Providing local authorities with resources, training and access to European alert systems is as important as legislating in Brussels.
It is not enough to have a national emergency plan if no one knows about it. The logic of “participated preparedness”, already followed in countries such as Sweden and the Netherlands, involves creating effective communication channels, involving local communities in risk exercises, and making visible who does what when there is a crisis. Civil protection must be, above all, understood.
In a time dominated by media froth and the anxiety of permanent direct contact, it has become easier to narrate the chaos than to recognize the effort. In this sense, it is fair and important to praise the role of the Armed Forces. They were and are on the ground, in more than a dozen municipalities, removing debris, restoring energy and ensuring logistical and human support for the populations. They do so, as so often, without claiming protagonism, but with the readiness and sense of mission that the country knows well, even when limited by a legal framework that is not up to the urgency.
The European Parliament will also have a decisive role to play. It is up to you to act with the speed that urgency requires, accelerating legislative initiatives that reinforce prevention, adaptation and resilience on the ground. But, above all, it is up to you to ensure that European solidarity translates into real and timely support for the affected territories and communities.
New realities require another level of preparation and this applies to both Europe and Portugal. What is at stake is not just reinforcing resources or improving response mechanisms, but changing a way of thinking, of making the culture of civil protection a condition for preparing for a future that is no longer exceptional. In a Europe where many citizens distrust institutions, coherence between prevention, response and recovery is also a way to restore trust.
*CDS MEP, member of the Justice and Home Affairs committee
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