We're currently witnessing climate change slowly showing its ugly face of the 1.5⁰ of global temperature rise, which we try to avoid but are nowhere close to making the necessary effort aside from perpetual percentage lipservicing. We are going to hit the wall, the question is how much we can slow down and brace for impact. Global population is set to decline after 2050, but as our planet faces its stress test of providing a home to 10 billion inhabitants, there is no time left to prevent a bleak future. We will be facing tough decisions in the future, questions which we can more easily answer as European Union.

My priorities

• Defense

  What should Europe's defense force be recognised for? How about to being specialised in catastrophe intervention and disaster relief? Built after the Spanish military emergency unit with a civil society branch inspired by the Technisches Hilfswerk in Germany, I would like Europe to build up capacities for protecting against wildfires, floods, droughts and all sorts of other catastrophes.

• Water access

  We can see Europe is drying up and while other regions on the world already have to cope with lack of potable water, we're still pretenting water is an infinite resource or naively permit private initiatives to manage water supply. I would like to begin ensuring that water management across Europe remains in public hand and introduce measures that aim to ensure clean, potable water remains available to all European citizens.

• Agriculture

  Whether drought or torrential rain leading to soil erosion, our agricultural sector and food autonomy will also likewise be under threat in the years to come. Just like our industry has to turn green, agriculture will have to adapt to changing conditions. We will have to find answers to what we can grow, where and how and I would like push for more sustainable agriculture to become a staple of agricultural policy on European level.

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