Today, at 12:00 noon, 2,035 livestock farmers of Thessaly will see in their accounts advance payments of compensation for the losses they suffered in livestock from storm Daniel, Lefteris Avgenakis announced in an interview on ERT1. The total of the advance payment amounts to 16,528,449 euros.

As pointed out by the Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications, given that the filing of the declarations ended on October 20, the speed with which ELGA acted is unprecedented. Also, the prices are unprecedented, since as he noted, while the base price of ELGA for cattle was 500 euros, finally with his intervention the Organization will pay 800 euros for each animal. Accordingly, for sheep and goats, while the base price was 100 euros, ELGA will pay 125 euros, while for the improved ones, while the base price was 125 euros, the Organization will pay 150 euros.

As the Minister of Rural Development and Food clarified compensations are not paid two months after the disaster, as some officials of the Opposition argue, but only 19 days from the day the declaration submission system was closed, which received two time extensions to remain open, following a demand by the affected parties themselves and by their official bodies.

Payments for crop production will be made next Friday and will correspond to 30,088 statements, with clearly improved prices per product.

The affected producers, until today, reminded that they have received from the State Aid a first aid amounting to 19 million euros (given to 9,076 agricultural and livestock holdings). The following are the compensation advances for which, by order of Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis, 150 million euros have been initially credited to ELGA and it is expected that there will be continuation up to the amount that will be needed when the assessments are completed in order to make a payment, while there are also the additional measures of the YPAAT amounting to 15.8 million euros for those who did not have the possibility or were not required to insure their production in ELGA and 1.5 million euros for the fishermen of the area, as a loss of income.

At the same time, he reiterated that through European measures, such as 5.2 of the RDP, it will be 100% financed the replacement of livestock and the reconstruction of livestock facilities, noting that in this way the opportunity is given to the livestock farmers of the region to acquire modern, safe, non-energy-intensive facilities. He also underlined that the project that will enable the creation of livestock parks is progressing – and he has informed the outgoing and the newly elected regional governor about it. To the measures taken, he added the approval of the Improvement Plans for the runners-up of Thessaly, with a total budget of 37 million euros, noting that all the decisions (amount of compensation and additional measures) create an unprecedented support package for Thessaly.

Lefteris Avgenakis also announced that the measures that will apply to the primary sector and to the farmers, livestock breeders and beekeepers of Evros will be the same which were affected by the summer fire.

Finally he announced that tomorrow he will visit Thessaly with a group of EU ministers because the case of Thessaly is an issue that concerns all of Europe.