In total, almost 200 different municipalities in Slovenia were affected by the July hailstorms and the August floods and landslides. For the first time in history, the Government has earmarked such a large amount of funds to reimburse the intervention costs of municipalities and protection and rescue units, amounting to more than EUR 120 million.

In total, municipalities have announced costs of around EUR 95 million to be reimbursed. The deadline for submitting their applications, together with supporting documents proving the use of intervention funds, was 6 October. The current amount of claims submitted by the municipalities is EUR 73 million, which means that it is lower than what the municipalities had forecast, Behin said.

The first payment was made yesterday to the municipality of Prevalje in the amount of EUR 5.5 million. The municipalities of Črna na Koroškem, Podvelka and Ribnica will also receive payments in the coming days. More than EUR 10 million will thus be paid in the first eight days after receipt of the claims, and around EUR 40 million will be paid in the next week, representing half of the total amount, almost or more than half of all the claims submitted by the municipalities. Our main objective is to ensure that all municipalities receive the largest share of the funds for the largest bills as quickly as possible, both to provide liquidity to municipalities and to allow municipalities to pay their contractors, the Director stressed.

Payments are made promptly; this is a very specific way of paying actual eligible costs based on documents, which means that this system is slightly different from that which will be implemented in the future by the Ministry of Natural Resources and Spatial Planning in the case of rehabilitation costs, Behin explained. In the case of rehabilitation costs, the municipalities will receive the actual funds advanced on the basis of a contract and will then have to prove their eligibility to use these funds by means of authentic documents, in simple terms, invoices and all other procedures. In the case of intervention costs, we are already reviewing the actual costs and the actual documents, which means that there will be no subsequent procedures and the funds will be transferred as soon as the funds are eligible, summarised Behin, the Director of the Protection and Rescue Administration of the Republic of Slovenia.