Elisabeth Braw is a senior fellow at the Atlantic Council, the author of the award-winning “Goodbye Globalization” and a regular columnist for POLITICO. Seven years ago, Sweden made global headlines with “In Case of Crisis or War” — a crisis preparedness leaflet sent to all households in the country. Unsurprisingly, preparedness leaflets have become a trend across Europe since then. But now, Sweden is ahead of the game once more, this time with a preparedness leaflet specifically for businesses. Informing companies about threats that could harm them, and how they can prepare, makes perfect sense. And in today’s geopolitical reality, it’s becoming indispensable. I remember when “In Case of Crisis or War” was first published in 2018: The Swedish Civil Contingencies Agency, or MSB, sent the leaflet out by post to every single home. The use of snail mail wasn’t accidental — in a crisis, there could be devastating cyberattacks that would prevent people from accessing information online. The leaflet — an updated version of the Cold War-era “In Case of War” — contained information about all manner of possible harm, along with information about how to best prepare and protect oneself. Then, there was the key statement: “If Sweden is attacked, we will never surrender. Any suggestion to the contrary is false.” Over the top, suggested some outside observers derisively. Why cause panic among people? But, oh, what folly! Preparedness leaflets have been used elsewhere too. I came to appreciate preparedness education during my years as a resident of San Francisco — a city prone to earthquakes. On buses, at bus stops and online, residents like me were constantly reminded that an earthquake could strike at any moment and we were told how to prepare, what to do while the earthquake was happening, how to find loved ones afterward and how to fend for ourselves for up to three days after a tremor. The city’s then-Mayor Gavin Newsom had made disaster preparedness a key part of his program and to this day, I know exactly what items to always have at home in case of a crisis: Water, blankets, flashlights, canned food and a hand-cranked radio. And those items are the same, whether the crisis is an earthquake, a cyberattack or a military assault. Other earthquake-prone cities and regions disseminate similar preparedness advice — as do a fast-growing number of countries, now facing threats from hostile states. Poland, as it happens, published its new leaflet just a few days before Russia’s drones entered its airspace. But these preparedness instructions have generally focused on citizens and households; businesses have to come up with their own preparedness plans against whatever Russia or other hostile states and their proxies think up — and against extreme weather events too. That’s a lot of hostile activity. In the past couple years alone, undersea cables have been damaged under mysterious circumstances; a Polish shopping mall and a Lithuanian Ikea store have been subject to arson attacks; drones have been circling above weapons-manufacturing facilities; and a defense-manufacturing CEO has been the target of an assassination plot; just to name a few incidents. San Francisco’s then-Mayor Gavin Newsom had made disaster preparedness a key part of his program. | Tayfun Coskun/Anadolu via Getty Images It’s no wonder geopolitical threats are causing alarm to the private sector. Global insurance broker Willis Towers Watson’s 2025 Political Risk Survey, which focuses on multinationals, found that the political risk losses in 2023 — the most recent year for which data is available — were at their highest level since the survey began. Companies are particularly concerned about economic retaliation, state-linked cyberattacks and state-linked attacks on infrastructure in the area of gray-zone aggression. Yes, businesses around Europe receive warnings and updates from their governments, and large businesses have crisis managers and run crisis management exercises for their staff. But there was no national preparedness guide for businesses — until now. MSB’s preparedness leaflet directed at Sweden’s companies is breaking new ground. It will feature the same kind of easy-to-implement advice as “In Case of Crisis or War,” and it will be just as useful for family-run shops as it is for multinationals, helping companies to keep operating matters far beyond the businesses themselves. By targeting the private sector, hostile states can quickly bring countries to a grinding and discombobulating halt. That must not happen — and preventing should involve both governments and the companies themselves. Naturally, a leaflet is only the beginning. As I’ve written before, governments would do well to conduct tabletop preparedness exercises with businesses — Sweden and the Czech Republic are ahead on this — and simulation exercises would be even better. But a leaflet is a fabulous cost-effective start. It’s also powerful deterrence-signaling to prospective attackers. And in issuing its leaflet, Sweden is signaling that targeting the country’s businesses won’t be as effective as would-be attackers would wish. (The leaflet, by the way, will be blue. The leaflet for private citizens was yellow. Get it? The colors, too, are a powerful message.)

The Trump administration won’t tap emergency funds to pay for federal food benefits, imperiling benefits starting Nov. 1 for nearly 42 million Americans who rely on the nation’s largest anti-hunger program, according to a memo obtained by POLITICO. USDA said in the memo that it won’t tap a contingency fund or other nutrition programs to cover the cost of the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, which is set to run out of federal funds at the end of the month. The contingency fund for SNAP currently holds roughly $5 billion, which would not cover the full $9 billion the administration would need to fund November benefits. Even if the administration did partially tap those funds, it would take weeks to dole out the money on a pro rata basis — meaning most low-income Americans would miss their November food benefits anyway. In order to make the deadline, the Trump administration would have needed to start preparing for partial payments weeks ago, which it has not done. Congressional Democrats and anti-hunger groups have urged the Trump administration to keep SNAP benefits flowing into November, some even arguing that the federal government is legally required to tap other funds to pay for the program. But senior officials have told POLITICO that using those other funds wouldn’t leave money for future emergencies and other major food aid programs. Administration officials expect Democratic governors and anti-hunger groups to sue over the decision not to tap the contingency fund for SNAP, according to two people granted anonymity to describe private views. The White House is blaming Democrats for the lapse in funding due to their repeated votes against a House-passed stopgap funding bill. The Trump administration stepped in to shore up funding for key farm programs this week after also identifying Pentagon funds to pay active-duty troops earlier in the month. USDA said in the memo, which was first reported by Axios, that it cannot tap the contingency fund because it is reserved for emergencies such as natural disasters. The department also argues that using money from other nutrition programs would hurt other beneficiaries, such as mothers and babies as well as schoolchildren who are eligible for free lunches. “This Administration will not allow Democrats to jeopardize funding for school meals and infant formula in order to prolong their shutdown,” USDA wrote in the memo. The top Democrats on the House Agriculture and Appropriations committees — Reps. Angie Craig of Minnesota and Rosa DeLauro of Connecticut, respectively — lambasted the determination Friday, saying “Congress already provided billions of dollars to fund SNAP in November.” “It is the Trump administration that is taking food assistance away from 42 million Americans next month — including hungry seniors, veterans, and families with children,” they said in a statement. “This is perhaps the most cruel and unlawful offense the Trump administration has perpetrated yet — freezing funding already enacted into law to feed hungry Americans while he shovels tens of billions of dollars out the door to Argentina and into his ballroom.” Congress could pass a standalone bill to fund SNAP for November, but that would have to get through the Senate early next week and the House would likely need to return to approve it. Johnson said this week if the Senate passes a standalone SNAP patch, the House would “address” it. Rep. Don Bacon (R-Neb.) said he would lean toward using the emergency funds to help keep some food benefits flowing. “I think the President and GOP should do what we can to alleviate harm done by the Democrats,” he said in a text message. Bacon also said he would support having the House return to approve a standalone bill should the Senate pass one next week: “I figure the Speaker would want to.” Some states, including Virginia and Hawaii, have started to tap their own emergency funds to offer some food benefits in the absence of SNAP. But it’s not clear how long that aid can last given states’ limited budgets and typical reliance on federal help to pay for anti-hunger programs. USDA, furthermore, said states cannot expect to be reimbursed if they cover the cost of keeping benefits flowing.

CLIMATEWIRE | A once-outlandish idea for reversing global warming took a major step toward reality Friday when Israeli-U.S. startup Stardust Solutions announced the largest-ever fundraising round for any company that aims to cool the Earth by spraying particles into the atmosphere. Its plan to limit the sun’s heat raised $60 million from a broad coalition of investors that included Silicon Valley luminaries and the Agnelli family, an Italian industrial dynasty. The disclosure, critics said, raises questions about involvement of venture capital firms in driving forward a largely untested, thinly researched and mostly unregulated technology that could disrupt global weather patterns and trigger geopolitical conflict. The investors were “putting their trust in the concept of, we need a safe and responsible and controlled option for sunlight reflection, which for me is [a] very important step forward in the evolution of this field,” Stardust CEO Yanai Yedvab said during an interview this week in POLITICO’s London office. He and co-founder Amyad Spector, who also flew in for the interview, are both nuclear physicists who formerly worked for the Israeli government. The startup’s fundraising haul was led by Lowercarbon Capital, a Wyoming-based climate technology-focused firm co-founded by billionaire investor Chris Sacca. It was also backed by the Agnellis’ firm Exor, a Dutch holding company that is the largest shareholder of Chrysler parent company Stellantis, luxury sports car manufacturer Ferrari and Italy’s Juventus Football Club. Ten other firms — hailing from San Francisco to Berlin — and one individual, former Facebook executive Matt Cohler, also joined Stardust’s fundraising round, its second since being founded two years ago. The firm has now raised a total of $75 million. It is registered in the U.S. state of Delaware and headquartered outside Tel Aviv but is not affiliated with the state of Israel. The surge of investor enthusiasm for Stardust comes amid stalled political efforts in Washington and other capitals to reduce the use of oil, gas and coal — the main drivers of climate change. Meanwhile, global temperatures continue to climb to new heights, worsening wildfires, floods, droughts and other natural disasters that some U.S. policymakers have baselessly blamed on solar geoengineering. The new influx of cash is four times the size of the startup’s initial fundraising round and, Yedvab argued, represents a major vote of confidence in Stardust and its strategy to land government contracts for deploying its technology at a global scale. It also shows that a growing pool of investors are willing to bet on solar geoengineering — a technology that some scientists still consider too dangerous to even study. Even advocates of researching solar geoengineering question the wisdom of pursuing it via a for-profit company like Stardust. “They have convinced Silicon Valley [venture capitalists] to give them a lot of money, and I would say that they shouldn’t have,” said Gernot Wagner, a climate economist at Columbia Business School and author of the book “Geoengineering: The Gamble.” “I don’t think it is a reasonable path to suggest that there’s going to be somebody — the U.S. government, another government, whoever — who buys Stardust, buys the [intellectual property] for a billion bucks [and] makes the VC investors gazillions. I don’t think that is, at all, reasonable.” Lowercarbon Capital did not respond to emailed questions. Stardust claims to have created a particle that would reflect sunlight in the same way debris from volcanic eruptions can temporarily cool the planet. The company says its powder is inert, wouldn’t accumulate in humans or ecosystems, and can’t harm the ozone layer or create acid rain like the sulfur-rich particles from volcanoes. It plans to seek government contracts to manufacture, disperse and monitor the particles in the stratosphere. The company is in the process of securing patents and preparing academic papers on its integrated solar geoengineering system. The startup would use the money it has raised to begin “controlled outdoor experiments” as soon as April, Yedvab told POLITICO. Those tests would release the company’s reflective particles inside a modified plane flying about 11 miles (18 kilometers) above sea level. The idea, Yedvab explained, is that “instead of displacing the particles out to the stratosphere and start following them, to do the other way around — to suck air from the stratosphere and to conduct in situ experiments, without dispersing essentially.” He said the company could have raised more money but only sought the funding it believes is necessary for the initial stratospheric testing. Stardust only took cash from investors who are aligned with the company’s cautious approach, he added. The fundraising round wasn’t conducted “from a point of view of, let’s get as much money as we can, but rather to say, this is what we need” to advance the technology, Yedvab said. Stardust’s new investors include the U.S. firms Future Ventures, Never Lift Ventures, Starlight Ventures, Nebular and Lauder Partners, as well as the British groups Attestor, Kindred Capital and Orion Global Advisors. Future Positive Capital of Paris and Berlin’s Earth.now also joined the fundraising round. Corbin Hiar reported from Washington. Karl Mathiesen reported from London.

BRUSSELS — Climate change is already costing Europe dearly. This summer’s droughts, heat waves and floods will cost the European Union an estimated €43 billion this year, knocking nearly half a percentage point off the region’s economic output, according to a study published Monday.  The same study estimated that the cumulative damage to the European economy will reach about €126 billion by 2029. “These estimates are likely conservative,” said the authors of the study, Sehrish Usman of the University of Mannheim, and Miles Parker and Mathilde Vallat, economists at the European Central Bank. Extreme weather events are becoming more frequent as greenhouse gases warm the world. In 2024, natural disasters, including catastrophic flooding in Spain, destroyed assets worth $31 billion in Europe, according to the insurance company MunichRe. “Climate change has increased the frequency and intensity of extreme weather events like floods, droughts, heat waves, wildfires, and all of this is contributing to the rising economic cost for the European regions,” Usman said at an event in Brussels on Monday. The study included physical damage to buildings and infrastructure as well as impact on worker productivity and efficiency, and spillover effects on other parts of the economy. It did not include damage from wildfires that burned more than 1 million hectares in Europe this year. “These events are not just temporary shocks,” said Usman. “They manifest their impacts over time.” Floods can disrupt supply chains. Droughts can cripple agricultural yields. “Initially, this is just a heat wave,” she said. “But it affects your efficiency, it reduces your labor productivity.” Droughts were the most damaging, causing an estimated €29.4 billion of loss to the EU this summer. Heat waves and floods caused damages of €6.8 billion and €6.5 billion, respectively. Southern Europe, a region particularly vulnerable to climate change, was hit hardest. Cyprus, Greece, Malta and Bulgaria suffered losses of more than 1 percent of their economic output. “Denmark, Sweden, Germany show relatively lower damages but the frequency and magnitude of these events, especially floods, are also increasing across these regions,” the researchers wrote. The findings come just after climate scientists reported that global warming made a heat wave in July in Norway, Sweden and Finland 2 degrees Celsius hotter than it would have otherwise been. Scientists have also calculated that wildfires in Spain and Portugal were made 40 times more likely by climate change.

The European Union’s top diplomat said Tuesday the bloc’s executive was helping EU countries to evacuate their citizens from Israel amid the country’s war with Iran. EU High Representative Kaja Kallas told reporters in Brussels that the European Commission had activated its civil protection mechanism, used to help coordinate the bloc’s response during wars, natural disasters and other crises. “We are assisting member states to evacuate their citizens that wish to leave [Israel],” she said. Israel and Iran have been exchanging rocket and drone fire for almost a week since Israel launched a surprise attack, killing several top-ranking Iranian officials in a bid to stop Tehran from developing its nuclear program. Iranian missiles have rained on Tel Aviv in response, killing dozens and destroying buildings in the heart of the country. Poland, Czechia, Latvia and Lithuania announced this week they were evacuating citizens from Israel amid the conflict. With Israeli airspace closed, the Polish foreign ministry said it would evacuate about 200 citizens by bus to Jordan, where they would fly to Warsaw. Israel’s National Security Council has issued a Level 4 travel warning for Israelis traveling across land from Sinai or Jordan to Israel, the same routes that the evacuees will have to take. Yurii Stasiuk contributed to this report.

The Baltic countries on Friday signed a deal pledging to jointly plan for mass evacuations as the specter of bellicose Russian President Vladimir Putin looms over the region. The interior ministers of Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia committed to develop joint mass evacuation plans, streamline information exchange and ensure vulnerable groups are not left behind during evacuations. Data will be shared on evacuation capacity, possible evacuation corridors and the status of key border crossings, as fears grow over the security situation in the Baltic region as Putin continues to wage war on Ukraine.   “Clear procedures are crucial, as is the rapid exchange of information,” said Lithuania’s Interior Minister Vladislav Kondratovič in a press release, adding that this would ensure a quick roll out of measures and ensure there is no panic before and during a crisis. “It is important for the Baltic countries to maintain a unified approach and coordinate actions when threats arise in order to ensure the safety of our people — especially in the event of large-scale evacuation,” he said.   The move comes ahead of Zapad 2025 — the joint military exercise between Moscow and Minsk — set to take place in Belarus this September. Allied officials are increasingly uneasy about the drills, which some see as a potential prelude to aggression. Belarusian opposition leader Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya warned in a recent interview with Euronews that the exercises pose a real threat, noting that Zapad 2021 preceded Moscow’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine.  The Baltic agreement follows a joint declaration made in late May by the interior and civil protection ministers from eight EU countries — Belgium, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Finland and Sweden — calling for urgent additional measures to strengthen civil protection, preparedness and resilience both nationally and at the EU level. The statement underscored that national security is not only about military readiness but also hinges on civil preparedness. The capacity to maintain internal stability and respond to a wide range of crises, from natural disasters to hybrid threats, is vital “to protect our citizens and to help them protect themselves, now and in the future,” the ministers wrote in the joint statement.

Families should have enough cash set aside to last them three days in case of an emergency, the central bank of the Netherlands warned today. It advised people to keep €70 per adult and €30 per child safe in hard currency in case electronic payments systems go down. The bank cited the threat of cyberattacks — a growing risk given the increasingly fraught geopolitical situation — as one reason for consumers to stay prepared. In April, a power blackout in Spain and Portugal caused severe but ultimately short-lived problems with payments systems. The cash that’s set aside should be enough to cover “the minimum necessary expenses for a period of three days, such as for water, food, medicine, and transportation.” The Dutch central bank also had some advice for merchants: They should have alternative payment systems in place, like scannable QR codes, in case point-of-sale terminals don’t work. In March, the European Commission published a preparedness plan that recommended citizens stock three days’ worth of food to ensure supplies in case of emergencies like war or natural disasters.

BRUSSELS — The European Commission’s plan to slash bureaucracy for farmers risks hurting the planet. The EU executive wants to give out more cash to aid farmers hit by natural disasters while weakening the very green rules that are meant to safeguard the environment. That’s the main takeaway of a planned package of reforms to simplify EU farm policies, which account for over a third of the bloc’s total spending. It follows up on a major rollback of the Green Deal last year, as rural protests overshadowed campaigning for the European election last June. According to a draft seen by POLITICO, the agriculture simplification package would further scale back environmental controls on the disbursement of funds under the Common Agricultural Policy. It would also exempt smallholders from some checks and raise the cap on subsidy payments to small farms. “A better balance between requirements and incentives is needed for guiding the sustainability transition of farming and fostering innovation,” the EU executive writes in the preamble to an amending regulation that would scale back conditions applying to country-level CAP plans that have been up and running for a few years. Agriculture Commissioner Christophe Hansen insisted ahead of the presentation of the reform on May 14 that the Commission would support the sector’s sustainability transition. “We cannot have a discussion on the future of agriculture without addressing resilience. Therefore it is important that we improve risk and crisis management to adapt to climate change,” he said in a speech on Thursday, adding that farmers should get more help “to restore their production potential” after natural disasters. The agriculture package — one of several “omnibus” measures to simplify EU regulation — arrives in the middle of a broader debate on future priorities. With the war in Ukraine and U.S. President Donald Trump’s turn away from Europe, Ursula von der Leyen wants to put more emphasis on industrial competitiveness and international security. But with the Commission due to land a long-term budget plan in July for the period 2028-2034 to fund those priorities, its farm department, agriculture ministers and European lawmakers are all saying agriculture spending should rise, rather than be cut, to ensure that farming in Europe has an economic future. Hansen, a former beef farmer from Luxembourg, has vowed to defend these priorities and protect farmers from budget cuts. They are also a priority of his political family — the European People’s Party — that has positioned itself as the farmers’ champion. LOOSER STANDARDS The draft document proposes more flexibility in how farmers implement some green standards — known as good agricultural and environmental condition of land requirements, or GAECs — where compliance is tied to farm subsidy payouts. For example, it wants to make it easier for farmers to use permanent grasslands under GAEC 1, which are normally set aside to boost biodiversity and carbon sequestration. The draft would increase the maximum amount that can be lost from 5 to 10 percent compared to 2018, notably to take into account the needs of farms, such as increasing production. Agriculture Commissioner Christophe Hansen insisted ahead of the presentation of the reform on May 14 that the Commission would support the sector’s sustainability transition. | Oliver Hoslet/EPA The document also foresees changing the definition of what is considered a “water course” in the standard related to the protection of water (GAEC 4). This could lead to fewer rivers meeting the definition to be protected and therefore fewer buffer strips being put in place to prevent agricultural pollution and runoffs. When it comes to protecting wetlands and peatlands under GAEC 2, the Commission acknowledges that the obligation can “be costly for farmers” and “significantly limit their capacity to change or adjust the use of their land.” Therefore, it proposes to allow member countries to better compensate farmers for this work without increasing protection requirements. An EU official suggested the simplification package could have hurt the Green Deal more, noting pressure from EU member countries to cut green requirements even further. The official, granted anonymity to speak candidly, disputed that the legislation compromised the credibility of the Green Deal, arguing that it makes the system for implementing the CAP’s green standards more feasible, realistic and focused on incentives. DISASTER RELIEF In the short run, the Commission wants to make it easier for EU governments to hand out cash to support farmers hit by climate impacts, such as flooding and drought. The proposal foresees the creation of two new funds and would authorize direct payments to “enable the most affected farmers to be compensated rapidly.” National authorities should also set a “higher rate of compensation” for farmers who are covered by insurance or other risk management tools, according to the document. The system of conditionality, which restricts how national authorities can disburse CAP funding contributing to the protection of nature, the environment and climate, “should not apply to complementary payments to farmers following natural disasters, adverse climatic events or catastrophic events under direct payments,” the document adds. The simplification follows an 18-month policy process that von der Leyen initiated by holding a Strategic Dialogue on the Future of EU Agriculture that came up with an extensive catalog of policy recommendations. These were then poured into Hansen’s own Vision for Agriculture and Food in February. The simplification measures respond to some recommendations from the strategic dialogue, notably on the need to promote organic farming. But they appear to clash with others, such as more action to “facilitate the adaptation of agriculture to changing climatic and environmental conditions, … practices to advance towards water-resilient and less resource intensive farming.”

CATARROJA, Spain — Lorena Silvent remembers exactly where she was on Oct. 29 last year when deadly floods struck the Valencia region, leaving 228 victims in their wake. The mayor of Catarroja was standing in her office when she received a call from the chief of police warning her that parts of the city, a suburb just south of Spain’s third-largest metropolis, were flooding. “When I looked out the window, I could already see a brown stream starting to flow down the main street that crosses the city center. Within minutes, it had become a rushing river that carried off everything in its path — first trash cans, then cars.” Some 200 people sought refuge in the upper floors of the city hall building that night. And when the waters receded the following morning, they discovered every building in the municipality had been damaged by the disaster. Six months after the flood, the mayor is now overseeing a reconstruction effort predicated on the expectation that her city will someday flood again. Silvent’s government is among the first in Valencia to formally recognize the role of newly formed citizens’ committees in the reconstruction effort. Together, elected officials, bureaucrats and local residents are pioneering a new form of participatory urbanism, empowering residents to reshape the devastated city. “The next time the waters rise, we want to be prepared to handle them. That requires us to completely revise our approach to urbanism and question many of the things we’ve accepted until now,” the mayor said. RESIDENTS HAVE THEIR SAY When the floods hit, Valencians had to rely on one another to survive, giving their neighbors shelter as the water level rose. Faced with an apocalyptic scene as the floodwaters receded, they helped clear each other’s streets and houses of waterlogged furniture and mountains of mud. Catarroja resident and social educator Raül Camacho Segarra feels the show of civic unity was transformative for his community and others, who all felt betrayed by regional authorities that failed to warn them and were slow to aid in the recovery. “This tragedy generated a social movement of volunteers willing to leap over police barriers to help one another in those crucial days,” he said. As reconstruction discussions began, locals reflected on the region’s urban development, which was largely driven by speculative schemes that didn’t take factors like existing floodplains into account. Expressing their frustration with past governments that greenlit such projects, they decided to prevent that kind of city-building from happening again. The result is the citizen-led reconstruction committees established in Catarroja and other flood-hit municipalities throughout Valencia. Composed of a diverse collective of citizens — some with formal knowledge of architecture, urbanism and public law — these apolitical groups have banded together to have an active say in the recovery process. “We decided to redirect our anger at the status quo, at the mismanagement of our land and of the floods in which 228 of our loved ones died, and to channel that energy into our constructive demand to play an active role in the reconstruction of our city,” Camacho said. Raül Camacho Segarra is a member of Catarroja’s citizen-led reconstruction committee. | Aitor Hernández-Morales/POLITICO Initially focusing on urgent matters, they presented city hall with a list of priority cases, and Catarroja’s authorities eagerly accepted the input. It was the start of a fruitful collaboration that led the local government to share its draft reconstruction plan with the group and send representatives to its meetings. Now, the reconstruction committee’s goal is to ensure that the €210 million in public funds allocated to rebuild Catarroja don’t go to waste, Camacho said, evoking the public cash and real estate corruption scandals that have rocked the region in the past. “We’re talking about a sum that’s five times this city’s annual budget. It’s imperative to have organized citizen oversight.” A COMMON PATH The scale of the Valencia region’s reconstruction challenge is formidable. According to Mayor Silvent, some infrastructure — like Catarroja’s indoor pool and police station — is set to be rebuilt on higher ground, while buildings like the auditorium will be cleared of waterlogged elements and remodeled to ensure anyone trapped inside can quickly move to safety. “We’ve also got to figure out how to move the machinery that powers city hall out of the basement and sort out the underground archive,” she said. “It’s a miracle water didn’t seep into it this time. If it had, we would have lost priceless documents, our history.” Silvent noted the reconstruction process would require accepting that some buildings won’t be restored. “There was a time when every city in this region demanded to have its own theater, sports center, pool,” she said. “Now we’re thinking maybe we’re okay with commuting to the installations in the neighboring town, and having their residents use ours.” The biggest challenge, however, will be private property in the city’s most vulnerable areas. So far, Silvent’s government has moved to cancel all unapproved construction permits for the riskiest sites, and is in the process of developing regulations to ensure new buildings are designed to handle floods. It’s also trying to reclaim land from the Horta Sud, a vast area of farmland that has historically helped soak up water in extreme weather events. “This is land people have lately been buying up not because they wanted to cultivate food but because they wanted to engage in real estate speculation. We want it back because reactivating it will give us access to local, healthy food, and because we know irrigation canals can help us evacuate water in future crises,” she explained. Silvent said she’s confident citizens can help the city make these major changes more effectively. Earlier this month, her municipal government was among the first in the region to grant its local reconstruction committee official recognition, and to incorporate its representatives into administrative sessions, including one overseeing the distribution of public funds to local businesses. Valencian architect and social worker Júlia Gomar believes the partnership forged here, and between other reconstruction committees and local administrations, is a sign that something good is coming out of the tragedy. “The flood here was a bit like Covid, in that it exposed how vulnerable we are as individuals, and how much we need those neighbors we often hardly know,” she said. Mayor Lorena Silvent said the reconstruction process obliges the city to revise its entire approach to urbanism. | Aitor Hernández-Morales/POLITICO “One’s doorstep became the border separating the public spaces where authorities could help, and the private domains where you had to rely on common citizens,” she said, noting that the military units deployed weren’t authorized to clean out homes. “It helped generate a new sense of community that’s now going beyond the initial common feelings of anger and betrayal, and instead becoming an agent for empowerment and change.” Silvent said that although it can be difficult to “involve the public in public administration,” it’s worth the effort right now. “We’ve lived through an extreme crisis and people have lost a lot of faith in government. I think we can help repair that relationship by bringing people in and letting them be a part of this process.”

CATARROJA, Spain — By the time Valencia’s regional authorities warned residents that heavy rains were coming, Manuel Álvarez had already drowned in the floodwaters. Oct. 29, 2024 had been a relatively normal day for the 80-year-old semi-retired barber. Not a drop of rain had fallen in his hometown of Catarroja, located south of Spain’s third-largest city. He had just returned home from his annual check-up when the waters began to rush in. The national meteorological service had forecast dangerous rainfall that day, but Regional President Carlos Mazón, a prominent member of Spain’s center-right People’s Party (PP) — the Spanish affiliate of the European People’s Party (EPP) — had downplayed the warnings. His government’s late response to the disaster, which came after countless lives had already been lost, prompted a judicial investigation and led tens of thousands of Valencians to take part in mass protests demanding his resignation. The EPP now risks becoming the target of this local fury as its members descend on the city for Tuesday’s annual party conference, held on the six-month anniversary of the tragedy. Against the backdrop of major demonstrations, the party’s center-right politicians will be forced to come to terms with their Spain problem: a national affiliate that routinely drags domestic politics onto the EU stage, is lukewarm in its support of Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, and breaks party orthodoxy by partnering with the far right. Now it’s also implicated in the botched handling of one of the deadliest national disasters in recent history. “Catarroja is in a flood plain, and [my father] had dealt with overflows before, but this was something totally different,” Álvarez’s daughter, Rosa María Álvarez Gil, told POLITICO during an interview in the room where Manuel spent his final moments. The intensity of the flood is still evident in the century-old home, with a brown line near the ceiling marking how high the waters rose. “He was in great shape — he had gotten a clean bill of health that very afternoon, but the force of [the] water was too strong,” she said, adding the water had risen astonishingly quickly. “It was already up to his shoulders, and the last thing he said to me before the line went dead was, ‘Cariño, no puc, no puc’ [Darling, I can’t, I can’t].” A FORETOLD DISASTER Backed by the far-right Vox party, Mazón’s administration came to power in 2023 and adopted many of its then-coalition partners’ climate-skeptic positions. As a cost-cutting measure, the regional government eliminated the Valencian Emergency Unit — an elite rapid response force tasked with addressing the impact of crisis situations — and prioritized keeping the region open for business, no matter what. That may explain why, in the days leading up to the disaster, warnings from Spain’s national meteorological agency were ignored — including an alert issued that very morning, noting the “extreme danger” posed by the forecast rains. But Mazón insisted on sticking to his schedule, including a private lunch that stretched until the early evening. In recent court testimony, Salomé Pradas, the regional minister in charge of crisis management, admitted she’d had no idea how to address the emergency situation. Although the rivers began overflowing around noon, she rejected the national government’s offer to deploy the elite Military Emergencies Unit until 3 p.m. Mazón, meanwhile, didn’t answer her calls until well after many of the area’s rivers had overflown, and didn’t arrive at the emergency services center until 8:28 p.m. By then, the majority of the flood’s victims were already dead. Pradas is now the subject of a judicial probe meant to establish blame for the disaster. Mazón isn’t being formally investigated because his presidential status means he can only be indicted by Valencia’s High Court of Justice. Although he was invited to testify on a voluntary basis, he has so far declined to do so. Graffiti outside Manuel Álvarez’s house recalls the hour when the regional government’s tardy flood warning was sent. | Aitor Hernández-Morales “My father and the other 227 people who died in this flood are victims of the Mazón government’s ineptitude,” said Álvarez Gil, who now presides over the association representing the families of flood victims. Manuel Álvarez’s body was recovered in a nearby park the day after the flood. He had drowned just minutes before regional authorities sent out their first text message alert encouraging locals to avoid travel “as a precautionary measure … due to heavy rains.” “The fact that that man, that murderer, has yet to resign is an insult to every one of them,” Álvarez Gil said. HEADACHE FOR THE EPP Spain’s decentralized administrative system gives regional governments exclusive control over the management of emergency situations. Because the EPP’s Spanish affiliate controls Valencia’s regional executive, Europe’s center-right party has been dragged into the controversy surrounding the disaster. Initially, the PP attempted to protect Mazón by shifting the blame onto then-Deputy Prime Minister Teresa Ribera, Madrid’s pick for the Commission. High-ranking EPP members initially spoke out against her candidacy, but eventually green-lit her nomination as part of a larger deal. But Spain’s center-right MEPs refused to let the matter go, subjecting Ribera to a brutal confirmation hearing and taking the remarkable step of voting against von der Leyen’s second administration to underscore their discontent. The episode was emblematic of the PP’s determination to fight domestic wars on the European stage — long a thorn in the EPP’s side, and a tendency that could hijack tomorrow’s summit. Despite scoring a major victory in 2023’s nationwide regional and municipal elections, the PP has struggled to find its way after failing to unseat socialist Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez in that summer’s snap elections. Relegated to the opposition, it has been resorting to a strategy of blanket rejection regarding anything Sánchez supports — whether in Madrid or Brussels.  Granted anonymity to speak freely ahead of the party conference, one EPP official criticized the affiliate party’s obsession with “making everything a fight with the Socialists … As long as the Spaniards make everything a bullfight in Parliament, nobody will want to work with them.” Not everyone shares that opinion. One EPP lawmaker, also granted anonymity, expressed admiration for Spain’s rebellious streak — a plus among those who appreciate its role as a counterweight to the party’s historically dominant German wing. There is, however, less enthusiasm over the PP’s close relations with Vox, which is affiliated with the far-right Patriots at the EU level. Both Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk and German Chancellor-in-waiting Friedrich Merz have rejected collaboration with the far right in their home countries. Their position is echoed by EPP President Manfred Weber, who earlier this month urged party members to endeavor to defeat Europe’s “authoritarian wave.” In Spain, however, the PP and Vox have shared coalition governments in around 100 Spanish cities since 2023 — Valencia among them. And while they currently don’t govern together in any of Spain’s regions, they remain open to passing key legislation. Last month, the PP and Vox forged an agreement to pass Valencia’s budget bill. The draft legislation includes anti-immigrant rhetoric and targets von der Leyen’s signature European Green Deal — which Mazón recently denounced as a “radical” scheme that is “neither European, nor green, nor a deal.” Paradoxically, at this week’s conference, the PP intends to table a resolution “for an EU ready to respond to climate emergencies.” The resolution calls for strengthening “preparedness against climate emergencies,” even as party members like Mazón denounce “climate dogmatism” in the regions they govern. Neither the PP nor the party’s regional affiliate in Valencia responded to POLITICO’s repeated requests for comment. VALENCIAN VENGEANCE Tuesday’s summit is overshadowed by morbid coincidences. Not only is it being held exactly six months after the flood, but it’s taking place in the same conference complex that was used as a makeshift morgue in the disaster’s aftermath. A major demonstration — the latest in a series that have drawn tens of thousands of protestors — has been organized by a vast consortium of associations demanding Mazón’s resignation. Security forces are on call to keep summit attendees protected at the venue and to secure the hotels where VIPs are staying, as emotions remain frayed in a region where locals attacked Spain’s prime minister and pelted King Felipe VI with mud when they visited the flood zones. As a cost-cutting measure, the regional government eliminated the Valencian Emergency Unit — an elite rapid response force tasked with addressing the impact of crisis situations — and prioritized keeping the region open for business, no matter what. | Alex Juarez/Anadolu via Getty Images “I imagine they don’t realize just how tense the situation is over here,” said Francesc Roig, lawmaker for the center-left Compromis party in Valencia’s regional parliament. He expressed shock that the EPP had moved forward with the event, and predicted locals would be infuriated by party notables socializing, stressing it wasn’t just the botched response but the slow pace of recovery efforts that angered many. “Half a year after the disaster, there are still 6,000 elevators that have yet to be repaired,” he said. “There are thousands of people — elderly residents, folks with disabilities — who are trapped in their homes, who haven’t gone outside in months … The death toll keeps rising because people are developing respiratory illnesses as a result of living in houses that are partially ruined and full of mold.” The EPP, however, dismissed concerns that the conference could be overshadowed by demonstrations: “We’re thankful for Partido Popular co-hosting this congress and having invited us to go to Valencia,” Tom Vandenkendelaere, Weber’s head of cabinet, told POLITICO. “We are looking forward to a successful congress.” Ahead of the summit, the three main victims’ associations sent an open letter to von der Leyen, requesting a meeting and calling on her to issue a “clear and public condemnation” of Mazón’s handling of the tragedy. And though the Commission president declined to meet with them in Valencia, in a letter seen by POLITICO, her head of cabinet, Bjoern Seibert, invited victims to a meeting in Brussels on May 13. The letter indicates von der Leyen is ready to hear from Mazón’s critics. “We recognize the immense pain and loss you have suffered and the tragedy you describe,” Seibert wrote. “We believe that your voices deserve to be heard in the most meaningful way.” Álvarez Gil said the victims are determined to ensure von der Leyen knows what took place in Valencia six months ago: “I want her to know what happened here,” she said. “I want her to know what it means for her, and for Europe’s image in Valencia, to be photographed beside people who have blood on their hands.”