The reconstruction of Thessaly after the 'Daniel' and 'Elias' weather phenomena will cost 3.5 billion euros, Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis said on Tuesday, during a meeting of the Thessaly Regional Council on Tuesday.
Under any other circumstances, he said, it would not be easy to collect the funding, but what helped was the combination of state funding and "the significant additional absorption of European funds," he said. The government expended great effort and negotiating power to be able to assure such European support.
Among other funding information, Mitstotakis said that 2.5 million euros would be transferred to contractors in the city of Volos who had restored the extended damage incurred by the storms on the water system. A total of 226 million euros has already been paid out, he said, and the Civil Protection Ministry will hire more staff to speed up the process. Finally, he said that mayors and regional governors already know that the government stands by them, and that 270 million euros have been earmarked for emergency funding, with 230 million euros of these already paid out.