The physical, financial, and social impacts of disasters in Europe are growing and will continue to grow unless urgent actions are taken. In the European Union (EU), during the period from 1980 to 2020, natural disasters affected nearly 50 million people and caused on average an economic loss of roughly €12 billion per year (EEA, 2020). The impacts of flood, wildfire, and extreme heat are increasing rapidly, and climate damages could reach €170 billion per year according to conservative estimates for a 3 scenario unless urgent action is taken now (Szewczyk, et al., 2020). Earthquakes, while rare, have a devastating impact on the ageing buildings and infrastructure of Europe that were constructed prior to modern codes; in Bucharest, for example, nearly 90% of the population lives in multifamily buildings with pre-modern building codes3 (Simpson & Markhvida, 2020). Within the EU, the top-five countries with the highest annual average loss to earthquake are Cyprus, Greece, Romania, Bulgaria, and Croatia, and for floods the top-five countries are Romania, Slovenia, Latvia, Bulgaria, and Austria.4 However, disasters do not affect everyone equally: poor, elderly, very young, and marginalized populations are most affected and least able to recover. In Romania, Greece, Croatia, and Bulgaria, for example, the socio-economic resilience of the poor is on average less than 30% of the national average (World Bank, 2020). Moreover, the local and regional administrations in the poorer and more disadvantaged areas have the least capacity to design and implement resilience investments.