The EU Day for the Victims of the Global Climate Crisis

Executive Vice-President for the European Green Deal, Frans Timmermans signed a joint declaration to inaugurate 15 July as the Annual EU Day for the Victims of the Global Climate Crisis, together with the Deputy Prime Minister of Spain, Teresa Ribera on behalf of the Presidency of the Council of the EU, and the Vice-President of the European Parliament, Marc Angel.

At a ceremony in Brussels, the three signatories delivered remarks to pay tribute to all victims of climate-related disasters.

The annual day will serve to commemorate victims in Europe as well as worldwide and to raise awareness of concrete steps that people can take at their level to help prevent disasters from happening and to be better prepared for and respond to climate disasters. Special Adviser to the UN Secretary-General on Climate Action, Selwin Hart, also made remarks during the ceremony.

There was a musical programme including part of the Rain Requiem by composer Jef Neve and writer David Van Reybrouck, their tribute to those who lost their lives in the floods of July 2021 that affected several European countries and took over 200 lives.

On the inaugural commemoration, Mr Timmermans embarked on a series of visits to sites of the 2021 flooding. In Chaudfontaine, close to Liège, Belgium, he attended the opening of an exhibition about the catastrophic floods L'au-delà des eaux. This was followed by a visit to a reconstruction site in the nearby Vesdre Valley, where local citizens and community representatives commemorated those who died that day and acknowledged the ongoing impact of the disaster on people's lives in the local area.

In Eschweiler in Germany, he visited the Sankt Antonius hospital, which was badly damaged by flash flooding on night of 14-15 July 2021. 

Finally, the Executive Vice-President met with young people in Valkenburg in the Netherlands to discuss how the floods had affected them and the urgent need to adapt to become more resilient to similar climate-related disasters in the future. 

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Declaration

Video coverage of the ceremony

Photos of EVP Timmermans' visits to Belgium, Germany and the Netherlands