After the meeting, he presented the key amendments to the Natural Disaster Recovery Act. The extreme weather conditions we are increasingly witnessing call, on the one hand, for preventive action and, on the other, for changes in legislation to enable the State to provide effective assistance in the event of natural disasters. According to the Prime Minister, municipalities will now be entitled to a 20% advance payment for emergency measures on the basis of a preliminary recovery plan. “It is very important that a partial cost estimate will be carried out. We will not wait for a full damage assessment. Once we have the cost estimates in each area, we will be in a position to take further action,” said the Prime Minister, Dr Robert Golob.

The Prime Minister, Dr Golob, also pointed out that agricultural producers who suffer 100% crop damage will be entitled to rapid compensation under the de minimis system. This damage compensation “will go through a special procedure in line with legislative changes and will be available later this year,” the Prime Minister said. “If we have learned anything from the response to natural disasters in the past year, it is that, unfortunately, people wait a very long time to be reimbursed for these costs,” Dr Golob pointed out. The aim of the legislative change is to expedite the procedures for those measures for which this is allowed by the European framework. “We wish to measure responsiveness in months instead of years. We believe that he who gives quickly, gives twice. This is why we wish to help both local communities and agricultural producers as quickly as possible,” concluded the Prime Minister.