European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen traveled to the flood-battered city of Wrocław in southwestern Poland on Thursday, pledging €10 billion ($11.1 billion) in European Union cohesion funding to help Central European nations recover from the catastrophic deluges unleashed by Storm Boris.
Standing alongside Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk, Czech Prime Minister Petr Fiala, Slovakian Prime Minister Robert Fico, and Austrian Chancellor Karl Nehammer, von der Leyen announced that the European Union would waive standard bureaucratic conditions to accelerate capital deployment. Crucially, the funds will carry a 100% European financing rate, freeing national governments from mandatory co-financing requirements.
Emergency Summit in Inundated Wrocław
Storm Boris triggered unprecedented torrential rainfall across Central and Eastern Europe over the past week, bursting river embankments, destroying bridges, and submerging entire towns in southwest Poland, northern Czechia, and parts of Austria, Hungary, and Romania. The catastrophe has claimed at least 24 lives and displaced tens of thousands of residents.
The €10 billion package will be drawn from existing allocations within the EU's multiannual cohesion budget, repurposed swiftly to repair public water systems, power grids, railway networks, and flood defense embankments.
“Extraordinary times require extraordinary measures. We are making ten billion euros available from the cohesion funds for the countries that are hit, with one hundred percent European financing and no national co-financing required.”
Fast-Track Rebuilding of Vital European Infrastructure
In addition to the cohesion funding, von der Leyen confirmed that member states will be eligible to tap the European Union Solidarity Fund (EUSF) to finance long-term civil engineering and structural climate adaptation projects designed to withstand future extreme weather events.
Prime Minister Tusk commended Brussels for its swift and decisive response, stating that direct EU solidarity will ensure affected municipalities can begin reconstruction without destabilizing national budget deficits.
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