City councils have until end of Friday 31st May to ensure land clearing, replacing landlords and other forest producers in default, in order to avoid penalties for current transfers from the Financial Equilibrium Fund (ETF).
In the scope of the Exceptional Regime of the Secondary Networks of Fuel Management, inserted in the Law of the State Budget for 2019, as in 2018, the city councils have to guarantee “the accomplishment of all the works of fuel management, owners and other forest producers in default”.
Between April 1 and May 26 of this year, the National Republican Guard (GNR) initiated “1,710 new infractions to owners for lack of fuel management (cleaning of the forest), on average 40 infractions per day during this period.
During the year 2018, this security force raised 8,425 infractions due to lack of clearing of forest land, which corresponds to an average of 23 infractions identified per day.
In order for municipalities to be able to replace non-compliant landlords, the law states that “landowners and other forest producers are obliged to allow access to their land and to reimburse the town council for expenses incurred in the management of fuel.”
In order to ensure the payment of the costs of the land clearing work, municipalities can apply by September 30 to the line of credit to finance the cleaning of the forest, totaling 50 million euros, as happened in 2018.