This is the summer in which Europe has become less and less of a player and more and more of a spectator. I cannot remember a summer that produced such a succession of bewildering challenges as this one. It seems as if the EU member states are becoming collectively paralysed as a result.
As I write this column in France, the landscape around me is rapidly turning into an autumn scene. Trees are losing their leaves, plants are dying, wildlife is searching for food and water, while forests are burning. By now, half a million hectares of forest and farmland have been destroyed across Europe.
Farmers are bearing the brunt of it. They are feeding their cattle from their winter reserves. Here in France, the yield of maize for animal feed is down by 25 percent. Milk production has fallen by 10 to 15 percent. Courgette production is down by 25 percent, lettuce by 35 percent, broccoli by 60 percent and artichokes by 100 percent. The result? Shortages and inflation.
Moreover, for every degree of temperature increase, labour productivity falls by 2 to 3 percent. If this continues, our national economies could, according to the insurer Allianz, be up to 7 percent behind by 2030.
That is precisely what we cannot afford. The economy is already struggling, and the costs of adapting to climate change are far higher than the investments that would have been needed to prevent it. Europe is doing a great deal on climate policy, but it has done little to halt the process. And President Trump considers climate policy nonsense and wants to use sanctions to force Europe to abandon it altogether.
In recent years, there were fears that the southern European countries would make far greater demands on the EU’s emergency funds, thereby weakening financial solidarity. But those fears have receded this summer. Extreme weather is affecting almost every country.
Climate adaptation is becoming a matter of survival.
And then there is Trump’s stupid war in the Middle East, which has simply festered on throughout the summer. Because of its apparent hopelessness, nervousness has once again increased in the energy markets this week. Oil and gas prices are surging. More seriously, the price of fertiliser, an important export product of the region, is set to rise by 30 percent this year. This, combined with the climate crisis unfolding in Africa as well, is expected by experts to produce large numbers of climate refugees.
The migration crisis in the Spanish exclave of Ceuta, where 70,000 Moroccans crossed the border, shows what could happen. Fuelled by Russian trolls, blind panic took hold in Europe itself. If Russia wants to scare European countries out of their wits, it does not need terrorist attacks or acts of sabotage. Spreading panic about migration is more effective, even though the exodus itself failed completely.
What struck me was Europe’s collective paralysis. Climate adaptation still seems to be treated as a theoretical concept. Europe is a spectator in the war in the Middle East. The same applies to the war in Ukraine, which is rapidly escalating. The number of civilian deaths is rising at an alarming rate, while Russia is extending its campaign into Europe through disinformation campaigns, sabotage, attacks and drones. Yet we respond with resignation. The migration crisis in Ceuta showed that even when not a single migrant reaches Europe, the hysteria can still lead to completely disproportionate reactions.
This raises the question of whether Europe still has its own destiny in its hands.
Source: Trouw, Rob de Wijk, 20 August 2026
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