Ministry pledges faster aid payments for wildfire victims

The Ministry of Climate Crisis and Civil Protection has extended financial assistance to victims of wildfires to their secondary residences and is cutting down on red tape in order to provide the aid faster. 

Thus, each household will get a minimum of €600 for emergency repairs on their main residence, with the amount increasing for large families and persons with special needs; each household will also receive a minimum of €6,000 in assistance to replace equipment in their main residence, to which the Ministry has added a minimum of €3,000 for equipment replacement in secondary residences. 

Also, those injured and at least partly incapacitated will get €4,500 each. 

If the ministry has already inspected the houses of applicants for assistance in order to determine eligibility, a further inspection by local authorities is no longer required. 

Municipalities must submit lists of eligible aid recipients no longer than three months after the wildfire erupted. Until now, they had six months to do so. 

The ministry also said it will revise rules regarding compensation for all natural disasters.