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Twenty Countries Ask EU to Prepare for Climate Change Health Hazards 

A woman stands on the edge of the Garzweiler lignite open cast mine near Luetzerath, western Germany, on November 12, 2022, as in background can be seen wind engines. (AFP)
A woman stands on the edge of the Garzweiler lignite open cast mine near Luetzerath, western Germany, on November 12, 2022, as in background can be seen wind engines. (AFP)
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Twenty Countries Ask EU to Prepare for Climate Change Health Hazards 

A woman stands on the edge of the Garzweiler lignite open cast mine near Luetzerath, western Germany, on November 12, 2022, as in background can be seen wind engines. (AFP)
A woman stands on the edge of the Garzweiler lignite open cast mine near Luetzerath, western Germany, on November 12, 2022, as in background can be seen wind engines. (AFP)

A large majority of European Union countries want stronger EU action to prepare for the health consequences of climate change and global warming's potential to spread vector-borne diseases, a document seen by Reuters showed.

Europe is experiencing severe health impacts as a result of the changing climate. Around 61,000 people are estimated to have died in sweltering European heatwaves last summer, suggesting countries' heat preparedness efforts are falling well short.

In a joint paper, 20 of the EU's 27 member countries including Croatia, Germany, Greece, Malta and the Netherlands, have urged the EU to increase its surveillance of the threats to health and healthcare systems posed by extreme weather, to help countries prepare.

The EU should also draft plans for infections of zoonotic and climate-sensitive vector-borne diseases, and strengthen its early warning and response system for if disease-spreading vectors are detected, the countries said.

"Unless proactive measures are taken, it is a matter of time before certain preventable infectious diseases, which are currently more prevalent in other regions, become increasingly common occurrences within the EU," the paper said.

It was also backed by Austria, Belgium, Cyprus, the Czech Republic, Denmark, Estonia, Hungary, Ireland, Italy, Latvia, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Portugal, Romania and Slovenia.

Climate change is increasing the risk that infectious diseases will spread into new areas - including in Europe, as summers become hotter and longer, and increased flooding creates favorable conditions for spreading infectious disease.

An example of this is the tiger mosquito, which is now present in 337 regions in Europe - more than double the number a decade ago, said the paper, which was reported earlier on Monday by the Financial Times.

EU countries' health ministers will discuss the paper in a meeting next week. The EU is currently drafting its first climate risk assessment, due to be published next year as a basis for future policies to cope with climate hazards like heatwaves and wildfires.

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Varieties

Chili Paste Heats Up Dishes at Northeastern Tunisia’s Harissa Festival

Chahida Boufaied, owner of Dar Chahida Lel Oula, prepares the Harissa in her house in Nabeul, Tunisia, Tuesday, Jan. 7, 2025. (AP Photo/Ons Abid)
Chahida Boufaied, owner of Dar Chahida Lel Oula, prepares the Harissa in her house in Nabeul, Tunisia, Tuesday, Jan. 7, 2025. (AP Photo/Ons Abid)
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Chili Paste Heats Up Dishes at Northeastern Tunisia’s Harissa Festival

Chahida Boufaied, owner of Dar Chahida Lel Oula, prepares the Harissa in her house in Nabeul, Tunisia, Tuesday, Jan. 7, 2025. (AP Photo/Ons Abid)
Chahida Boufaied, owner of Dar Chahida Lel Oula, prepares the Harissa in her house in Nabeul, Tunisia, Tuesday, Jan. 7, 2025. (AP Photo/Ons Abid)

For years, Tunisians have been picking bright red peppers, combining them with garlic, vinegar and spices and turning them into a saucy spread called harissa. The condiment is a national staple and pastime, found in homes, restaurants and food stalls throughout the coastal North African nation.

Brick-red, spicy and tangy, it can be scooped up on bread drizzled with olive oil or dabbed onto plates of eggs, fish, stews or sandwiches. Harissa can be sprinkled atop merguez sausages, smeared on savory pastries called brik or sandwiches called fricassées, The Associated Press reported.
In Nabeul, the largest city in Tunisia’s harissa-producing Cap Bon region, local chef and harissa specialist Chahida Boufayed called it “essential to Tunisian cuisine.”
“Harissa is a love story,” she said at a festival held in honor of the chili paste sauce in the northeastern Tunisian city of Nabeul earlier this month. “I don’t make it for the money.”
Aficionados from across Tunisia and the world converged on the 43-year-old mother’s stand to try her recipe. Surrounded by strings of drying baklouti red peppers, she described how she grows her vegetables and blends them with spices to make harissa.
The region’s annual harissa festival has grown in the two-plus years since the United Nations cultural organization, UNESCO, recognized the sauce on a list of items of intangible cultural heritage, said Zouheir Belamin, the president of the association behind the event, a Nabeul-based preservation group. He said its growing prominence worldwide was attracting new tourists to Tunisia, specifically to Nabeul.
UNESCO in 2022 called harissa an integral part of domestic provisions and the daily culinary and food traditions of Tunisian society, adding it to a list of traditions and practices that mark intangible cultural heritage.
Already popular across North Africa as well as in France, the condiment is gaining popularity throughout the world from the United States to China.
Seen as sriracha’s North African cousin, harissa is typically prepared by women who sun-dry harvested red peppers and then deseed, wash and ground them. Its name comes from “haras” – the Arabic verb for “to crush” – because of the next stage in the process.
The finished peppers are combined it with a mixture of garlic cloves, vinegar, salt, olive oil and spices in a mortar and pestle to make a fragrant blend. Variants on display at Nabeul’s Jan. 3-5 festival used cumin, coriander and different spice blends or types of peppers, including smoked ones, to create pastes ranging in color from burgundy to crimson.
“Making harissa is an art. If you master it, you can create wonders,” Boufayed said.