Wildfires - Photo © European Union 2026

As catastrophic wildfires sweep across Southern Europe, WWF warns that the EU is sleepwalking into a permanent wildfire crisis while simultaneously weakening key environmental protections that help safeguard people, economies and nature from climate impacts.

Wildfires - Photo by Pixabay

The European Commission has put forward a proposal for a new long-term EU budget that reduces existing funding for climate and nature, leaving Europeans ill-equipped to deal with the ever-worsening climate and biodiversity crisis, amid yet another summer plagued by heatwaves, wildfires and floods.

Deforestation - Image by Robert Jones from Pixabay

Today’s European Parliament vote adopting an objection to the European Commission’s country benchmarking system under the EU Deforestation Regulation (EUDR) represents an irresponsible move against one of the EU’s flagship environmental laws.