At the beginning of the meeting, the President of the Republic said that "today we have some particularly important decisions that implement our pre-election program, all that we promised the world. I want to refer to some of them, because they are particularly important.
The first is the grant scheme for energy storage combined with renewable energy sources (RES). The goal of the plan is to increase the penetration of RES in the energy mix of our country through the installation of energy storage systems. It is a project with a total cost of 40 million euros and the potential beneficiaries will be existing small and medium and large enterprises. It was a promise, a pre-election announcement, which we are moving towards today and I consider it particularly important in the context of our goal of reducing the price of electricity.
Second, we have the amending budget of 2024, which has a peculiarity, there is no burden on the fiscal balance, since the entire amount of 109 million euros comes from savings that have been made. And we come today to grant credits to cover needs that again concern the implementation of our pre-election program. It is mainly to support rural development, the primary sector, the issue of water procurement, fire fighting, research and innovation and of course the additional appropriations to go even further with the installation of air conditioners in schools.
A third decision to be taken today concerns the issue of political refugees. The main change that is decided today through the proposal of the Deputy Ministry is to allow retrospectively, i.e. after the granting of the civil protection status – we discussed this issue from the beginning – the revocation of the international protection status in the event that it will be established that the beneficiary committed criminal acts.
Particularly important within the context of the priority we give to health issues is the memorandum of understanding between the Ministry of Health, the Ministry of Finance and the OKYPY in relation to ensuring the financial and administrative autonomy of the OKYPY. It focuses on five thematic axes, such as revenue growth, cost reduction, structural changes to be made, with a time horizon of the fourth quarter of 2026. So, it is important to monitor the implementation of the action plan drawn up after a relevant consultation.
And finally, there is the action program to deal with drought, water scarcity, a specific plan with 28 targeted actions, some of which are immediate – seven immediate, eight medium-term and 13 long-term actions. We are starting immediately, from today until 2030, to tackle this major problem, the great challenge of aridity and water scarcity."
