On 16 September, Ursula von der Leyen, President of the European Commission, delivered her State of the Union Speech for 2026, which sets out the priorities of the European Commission for the next year. On water resilience and agriculture, the speech focused mostly on water savings and drought management via adaptation.
During her speech, she mentioned:
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a new European Water Initiative to improve risk management
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a framework for Climate Resilience to be presented in October identifying 100 of the most vulnerable territories in Europe and assessing the risks and how to address them
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a Climate Insurance Alliance to cover the insurance gap and avoid that national budgets become the insurer of last resort
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Proposals to improve risk management in agriculture and address the insurance gap.
You can find the speech here and a factsheet summarizing the main initiatives announced here.
Key mentions of irrigation
Following the speech, Christophe Hansen, Commissioner for Agriculture and Food, published a LinkedIn post where he mentioned that “the new European Water initiative announced yesterday must deliver for farmers: efficient irrigation, modern infrastructure and AI technologies that help us use this precious resource wisely”. You can find the LinkedIn post here.
