There is a mistake that politics makes with almost scientific regularity: noticing the risk only once it has already become damage. Then everything moves quickly: funding is allocated, inspections take place, press conferences are held.
Then the water recedes and the issue goes back into a drawer, until the next time.
To break this pattern, I propose three concrete tools: a risk map open to citizens, an annual stress test of the Republic discussed in the Grand and General Council (Consiglio Grande e Generale), and a National Major Risks Plan that does not remain merely on paper.
How exposed is your home to landslides and flooding? What about the road you take every morning, or your children’s school? This is a question we should be asking before the next emergency, not after it.
The conference on the culture of prevention, promoted by the Secretariats of State for Territory and Environment and for Internal Affairs together with Civil Protection, had the merit of trying to break this pattern: institutions, technical experts, professionals and academics in the same room, discussing what has not yet happened. That is no small thing. But a conference is not a policy: at best, it is its premise.
Time is the real emergency
Climate change does not just alter the weather. It alters the risks to land, infrastructure, the economy, health and public services. The rains of May 2023, which brought Romagna to its knees just a few kilometres from us, proved this in the most direct way possible. If the risks change, the tools must change too. On this, we all agree. But agreeing costs nothing. Deciding does.
Small, and therefore faster — but only if we want it to be
San Marino’s size, usually cited as a limitation, can here become an advantage: in a small country, it is quicker to bring Civil Protection, the university, professionals and technical bodies together to share data, expertise and responsibility. It can be done. That does not mean it is being done.
Today the expertise exists, but it is scattered across offices with different timelines and different languages. Civil Protection must remain the linchpin of coordination, but prevention begins well before the emergency: in planning, in geology, in infrastructure, in data management.
Hence the three proposals.
First: a risk map accessible to citizens. Every family has the right to know how exposed their home, their street, and their children’s school are. In this field, transparency is not an option — it is the first form of prevention.
Second: a stress test of the Republic. Every year we ask banks to prove they could withstand a shock. We do not ask the same of the State. The Government should present an annual public report to the Council on the state of national risks: where we are vulnerable, what has been done, what is missing, and with what resources. Because what is not measured cannot be managed.
Third: a National Major Risks Plan. An operational tool, not yet another document to be filed away: updated vulnerability assessments, clear responsibilities, shared protocols, regular drills, and investments decided according to risk rather than the urgency of the moment.
The planning law is the real test
The Government has announced it intends to table a land-use planning bill by the end of the year. Every planning decision is also a decision about prevention: where we build, how we manage water, how much land we consume — these choices determine, at least in part, how exposed we will be tomorrow.
For this reason, I will be asking for the text to include a genuine prevention clause: no major transformation of the territory without an assessment of its impact on risk. Just as no law passes without financial coverage, no decision about the territory should pass without knowing how much it exposes us.
Knowledge is national security
A country that cannot read its own data, interpret complex phenomena, and design resilient infrastructure is a more exposed country.
This is why the University of the Republic of San Marino must be central, not sidelined. A San Marino Observatory on climate and risk, run in partnership with Civil Protection and open to neighbouring universities, would cost little and change a great deal.
Risk does not ask for a passport
The Association Agreement with the European Union opens up cooperation that also includes climate, research, public health and civil protection.
Several non-EU countries already take part in the European Civil Protection Mechanism: San Marino should seriously consider doing the same, and soon.
And the EGTC with the Province of Rimini could prove itself to be more than just an acronym by starting with a shared hydrogeological risk plan, with shared data, integrated monitoring and joint exercises. Landslides, floods and health emergencies do not stop at the border.
The courage to act on what cannot be seen
Prevention has an obvious drawback: it is invisible. A project built after a flood gets inaugurated, photographed, written about. A disaster that never happens makes no headlines.
There is no ribbon to cut for the landslide that did not occur. And yet every euro spent beforehand saves many more afterwards — in damages, in rebuilding, and sometimes in lives.
The true benefit will be measured by those who come after us, finding a safer territory and better-prepared institutions.
We do not know what the next extreme event will be, nor when it will arrive. But uncertainty is not an excuse to delay — it is exactly the reason to decide before the emergency decides for us.
When it comes to prevention, there is no perfect moment to begin.
There is only the moment when we choose not to wait.
