European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen will not meet with the victims of the DANA floodings that struck Valencia last October during her visit to the European People’s Party (EPP) congress, which will take place on April 29th and 30th.
The Commission has confirmed that the meeting requested by the victims’ associations will instead be held in Brussels on May 13th, behind closed doors, requiring the victims to travel to the European capital to be heard—a financial and logistical burden that is difficult to justify.
The decision has sparked discontent among the victims’ associations, who had sent an open letter to von der Leyen requesting a meeting in Valencia, taking advantage of her stay in the city. The affected families argued that it was essential to convey firsthand the dramatic situation still persisting in the region: families who remain homeless, businesses destroyed, and public infrastructure reconstruction that has not even begun six months after the disaster, amid widespread institutional abandonment.
However, the pressure on von der Leyen does not come solely from the victims. The People’s Party (PP), host of the congress, also faces a delicate situation. The president of the Valencian regional government, Carlos Mazón, is under intense political pressure from the left, which could seize on any perceived negligence to further attack his handling of the catastrophe.
Moreover, the European socialists, close allies of von der Leyen in Brussels, are equally uninterested in drawing too much media attention to the DANA disaster. Teresa Ribera, now Executive Vice-President of the Commission and Commissioner for Just Transition, was at the time the Spanish government minister responsible for managing the emergency. Exposing the institutional negligence could damage not only Pedro Sánchez’s government but also the political balance that supports von der Leyen and her closest allies.
In their letter, the victims’ associations denounced the numerous “failures” in the disaster management, the lack of accountability, and the abandonment suffered by hundreds of families. They also criticized the silence of public authorities—both regional and European— and noted that no representative from the European Commission has yet visited the affected areas.
Von der Leyen, who is currently working to strengthen her leadership profile ahead of the upcoming European elections, thus misses an opportunity to demonstrate political sensitivity at a particularly critical moment. For the victims, the trip to Brussels not only represents an additional economic burden but also a symbolic gesture of distance and indifference from the head of the European Commission.
The handling of this meeting could not only affect the morale of the victims but also influence the tone of political debate in Valencia, and ultimately add another front of pressure on von der Leyen, who is already seeing tensions multiply around her.
The EPP Congress in Valencia, to be held at the Palacio de Congresos on April 29th and 30th, will be a strategic event aimed at projecting an image of effectiveness and unity at a time when the Brussels elite faces mounting challenges and the socialist bloc appears increasingly weakened. The event will bring together the party’s top leaders, and it will also serve to strengthen support for EPP candidates ahead of national elections in several European countries — with particular attention on Poland, where Donald Tusk finds himself severely weakened internally.
The EPP seeks to reinforce its message of stability and growth in contrast to the rising influence of sovereignist conservative parties and the waning popularity of the current European Commission. Although von der Leyen will receive explicit backing from the party, the growing political pressures and internal divisions within the EPP — especially regarding issues like immigration, the energy transition, and the relationship with the European socialists — threaten to overshadow a Congress that was initially intended as a demonstration of unity.
