EU proposes regional firefighting hub in Cyprus to tackle worsening wildfires

The European Commission will propose establishing a regional firefighting hub in Cyprus to bolster responses to major wildfires across southern Europe and the Middle East, Commission President Ursula von der Leyen said Wednesday.

Von der Leyen, speaking in her annual address to the European Parliament, said climate change has made summers “hotter, harsher and more dangerous” and that the bloc must “give ourselves the tools” to fight increasingly severe fires. She said more than a million hectares burned this summer across Europe — a scale of destruction she called enormous — and added that the move to set up a Cyprus base was intended to expand the EU’s operational capacity along its southern flank and assist neighbouring countries.

Von der Leyen did not provide details on how the hub would operate, what assets it would house or how it would be financed. Cypriot officials first proposed creating a Mediterranean firefighting hub in 2022, envisioning additional aircraft and resources that could be rapidly deployed to large blazes in EU member states and nearby Middle Eastern countries such as Lebanon, Jordan and Israel.

Cypriot President Nikos Christodoulides described the announcement on social media as “hugely important” for the region. His government spokesman said a hub based in Cyprus would bolster the EU’s operational capabilities along its southern axis and provide help to the bloc’s Middle East neighbours.

The announcement comes after one of Cyprus’ worst recent wildfires in July, which killed two elderly people trying to escape the flames and destroyed hundreds of homes. Authorities said more than 40 square miles (about 104 square kilometres) of land in the southern foothills of the Troodos mountain range were scorched. Several countries, including Jordan, Israel, Egypt and Lebanon, sent helicopters and fixed-wing aircraft to assist Cypriot firefighters, as Cyprus has done in prior years when neighbouring states requested help.

Cyprus has been moving to expand its firefighting aviation capacity. Environment Minister Maria Panayiotou said tender procedures were under way for three fixed-wing aircraft with water-carrying capacities of about 3,000 litres (roughly 800 gallons) each, part of a five-year plan to build a state-owned fleet of 10 such planes in line with EU guidelines.

Experts and officials have linked the increasing scale and frequency of recent wildfires in southern Europe to rising temperatures and prolonged drought tied to climate change, which lengthen fire seasons and create drier fuels. The strain on national firefighting resources during intense, concurrent fire seasons has prompted calls for stronger shared mechanisms and pooled assets to ensure rapid cross-border response.

Any proposal from the European Commission will need further specification and approval within EU institutions and agreement on financing, basing, staffing and operational protocols. Cyprus’ geographic position — the bloc’s nearest member state to the Levant — has been cited by proponents as strategically useful for staging aerial firefighting assets that could reach southern Europe and parts of the Middle East more quickly than resources based farther north.

Officials said the proposed hub is part of broader EU efforts to adapt emergency response to climate-driven hazards and to improve coordination among member states and neighbouring countries. Details on timing, asset levels and cooperation frameworks were not released with von der Leyen’s announcement.