📅 Date: 16 October 2025
📍 Location: ASP 00G MEPs salons, European Parliament, Brussels
⏰ Format: Breakfast event
🎯 Theme: Shared EU emergency kit and crisis preparedness
📝 Register here

On 16 October, policymakers, industry representatives, and stakeholders will gather at the European Parliament for the event “Power Down. Are you ready? – Emergency Kit Wake-Up Breakfast.”

The discussion will focus on how a coordinated EU-wide approach to an emergency kit could strengthen Europe’s preparedness in times of crisis. Essential items such as candles, hygiene solutions, portable batteries, and safe drinking water are at the core of this initiative. These products are represented by the European Candle Manufacturers Association, EDANA (the voice of nonwovens), Natural Mineral Waters Europe, and EPBA-Consumer Batteries Europe. Together, they will highlight the role of basic yet vital goods in ensuring resilience during emergencies at this breakfast event at the Parliament.

Recent crises underline the urgent need. During the summer of 2025, widespread flooding swept across many areas of Spain, particularly Catalonia and other tourist regions, causing infrastructure damage and disruption to daily life. In April 2025, a massive power blackout affected most of Spain and Portugal and parts of southern France, leaving tens of millions without electricity for several hours. Severe river flooding in Germany, Austria, and Czechia also cut off communities from power, clean water, and access to shops, while heatwaves and wildfires in Greece and southern France forced evacuations, confined people to their homes, and disrupted essential services.

For households, simple steps can make a major difference in coping with such events. Keeping a supply of bottled water, non-perishable food, candles, batteries, power banks, and basic hygiene products can help families manage disruptions to power and water supply. Having a home emergency kit ready ensures people are less dependent on immediate outside assistance and more resilient when crises strike.

The breakfast event will bring together Members of the European Parliament, EU officials, and key stakeholders to exchange views on how a shared kit could contribute to better preparedness across Europe. To register for the event, please click here.