After the flood which caused 8 deaths and caused damages of 2.7 billion euros which hit Tuscany last November, the procedure for disbursing the 25 million euros in contributions allocated by the Region immediately after the extreme weather event – recognized as an emergency of a national nature – is going well: almost 17 million euros already disbursed and another 3.7 million being paid this week.
And after the Government’s allocation of 66 million euros for “immediate” support, the president in his capacity as commissioner announced from 1 July the opening of the portal for the reporting procedure in which citizens and businesses will be able to insert invoices and expenses incurred and thus have access to reimbursements provided for by national provisions, up to 5 thousand euros for families and up to 20 thousand for businesses affected by the flood.
«We are happy, we have exceeded the threshold of 20 million compared to the 25 that we have allocated – comments the president Eugenio Giani – It means that the requests for contributions are finally being successful. The activation of the platform from 1 July on the website https://www.regione.toscana.it/alluvione2023 will lead us to distribute the 66 million allocated by the Government of which I am executive commissioner for families and businesses. They are contributions that can be combined with the 3,000 euros that families have received or are receiving, so families can immediately take action to obtain these 5,000 euros that come from the law decree.”
However, there remains an important gap between the overall resources recognized by the Meloni Government for emergency sums (122 million euros) and those requested (162): 40 million euros are missing which will partly fall on the Municipalities already hard hit.
«We are moving forward with the extremely urgent interventions, the repair works of the damage that occurred on the night of the flood – argues the councilor for the Environment and Civil Protection, Monia Monni – There remain 40 million which will be moved to reconstruction interventions; it means that the Government recognizes the importance of these works, but has not recognized their utmost urgency”.
At the same time, however, absolute silence reigns over prevention interventions. The Tuscany Region has developed a 1 billion euro intervention plan to reduce hydraulic risk, to which, however, the Meloni Government has given no answers (the Region already invests around 100 million euros per year in hydraulic safety and as many in new works); Giani also focused on these structural interventions, hoping that the Government will take action with a figure that could be at least 300 million euros, of which however there is no evidence to date.
«The interventions to reduce residual risk – argues Monni – which will help the territories to live more peacefully, the Region needs are over 1 billion, but we still know nothing about this; we are worried because this is where the Government’s real political choice lies. While reimbursements are sanctioned by law and are a right, these are a precise choice of the Government both in quantity and timing and we urgently need to start the work possibly now, in the summer, to have the interventions finished before next winter”.
Councilor Monni then went into detail in the reporting procedure active since 1 July on the Region’s portal which, as is known, involves the insertion of the invoices and receipts necessary to access the reimbursement: «Whoever has a reimbursement request exceeding 8000 euro can request an advance of 2 thousand 500 euros which can be liquidated before the summer”.
The councilor for Productive Activities, Leonardo Marras, instead underlined that the new reporting procedure active from 1 July will also serve to obtain the 20 thousand euros of immediate support for businesses: «The activities that we will ask businesses for reporting and obtaining the contribution can subsequently also be used as an anticipation of a possible further reimbursement which we hope will occur thanks to further State funding. In this phase, 100% of the amounts incurred are recognized, up to the damage, up to the maximum limit of €20,000.00″.
