Abstract
The 2021 floods in Western Europe laid bare how European disaster management focused too much on prevention rather than resilience measures. Governmental response plans have sent a false feeling of symbolic preparedness as many European societies expect a perfectly functioning emergency system. Research indicates that the number and severity of natural hazards, such as floods, will increase due to climate change. This puts forth a need to change public risk acceptance and improvement in response measures. Disaster-prone countries like the Philippines made that experience before. As these countries cannot defend themselves against natural hazards, they focus more on reducing the impact of their consequences. This paper compares European and Philippine disaster management. It suggests that EU disaster management should standardise working procedures to simplify cross-border communication and increase flexibility by incorporating regional, national, and international level stakeholders to bridge the need-capability gap. The main obstacle is that national governments are unwilling to surrender their sovereignty over civil protection to the EU. Thus, organisational growth on the EU level in this area is slow.
- Introduction
Over the past years, discussions on the devastating consequences of climate change gained increasing attention in Europe. Especially after the floods of 2021, the disaster management of European countries was critically assessed. This study posits for Europe what the floods in 2021 represents is identical to what typhoon Haiyan did to the Philippines in 2013 – namely tragic events with so significant consequences that they triggered strategic level re-evaluations of disaster management. This paper examines what the Philippines learned about disaster management after Haiyan, how the European approach to floods in 2021 was evaluated, and what lessons Europe can draw from disaster-prone regions like the Philippines.