Fico: Slovakia to Receive €1 bn of €10-bn Package of EU Funds for Floods

Bratislava, September 20 (TASR) - Slovakia will receive €1 billion of the €10-billion package from EU cohesion funds to deal with the consequences of the recent floods, Prime Minister Robert Fico (Smer-SD), who attended on Thursday (September 19) a meeting of premiers and the European Commission on floods in Wroclaw, Poland, told a press conference on Friday. The premier added that Poland will receive €5 billion, the Czech Republic €2 billion, Austria €500 million and Romania €1.5 billion. The meeting on the use of EU funds should be held next week. "In addition to special tools such as the Solidarity Fund, we have standard EU funds, that are intended, among other things, for the so-called cohesion, which means a kind of erasing of differences between the individual regions of the EU. Within these cohesion funds, we have a certain amount of money that belongs to Slovakia," said Fico. According to the premier, the EC offered a solution that the state's participation wouldn't be required when addressing floods from the cohesion money. There was a discussion in Wroclaw as to whether it will be possible to finance only flood-prevention projects or also those concerning removal of the damage caused by floods. "We agreed to launch a very intensive dialogue with the EC. We want to know the scope of projects that fall under this framework. There are several ministries through which the aforementioned money could be implemented, chiefly the Environment Ministry, the Interior Ministry and the Transport Ministry," added Fico. ko/mcs