The serious warnings of this scorching summer in Europe, with fires that have devoured France or Belgium, a heatwave that left thousands dead, and an unusually warm Mediterranean Sea, do not faze Brussels. Ursula von der Leyen’s European Commission, in its second term, is carrying out a series of controversial policies, having put the handbrake on some of its green ambitions due to pressure from industry, major community countries, and also the European People’s Party (EPP), the majority party in the European Parliament, where it can rely both on the pro-European coalition and the far right. In Strasbourg, a far right more numerous – and louder – than ever works tirelessly to “dismantle the green agenda,” their political obsession in this legislature alongside reducing immigration.

This scorching summer has offered scenes never seen before in Europe. Seaplanes drawing water from the Seine to extinguish the fire in Fontainebleau, in the historic hunting forest of the kings of France. The Rhine and the Danube at their lowest flow levels and almost unfit for navigation. Forest fires in Wales, on the border between Belgium and Germany, on the beaches of Croatia.

“I don’t sleep thinking about whether the patients have survived,” confesses P., a general surgeon from Pinar del Río, in western Cuba. The doctor, with whom this newspaper spoke via WhatsApp, prefers to remain anonymous. The lack of medical personnel, medicines, and basic resources necessary to practice his profession, worsened by the shortage of supplies the island suffers and the U.S. sanctions, leads him to ask himself: “Why am I still here?”. The tension he experiences at work has caused him alopecia, weight loss, and episodes of depression.