Housing, fires, tolls and animal welfare: these are the main measures approved by the Government – infoLibre

The Council of Ministers has approved this Tuesday the distribution of nearly 1,900 million euros from European funds for the rehabilitation of housing and social rental, as announced by the Minister of Transport, Mobility and Urban Agenda, Raquel Sánchez, at the press conference after the meeting. The measures and agreements approved in detail this Tuesday are the following: 1,900 million euros for rehabilitation and social rental The Government estimates that the rehabilitation and construction of social housing included in the plan approved this Tuesday will serve to create some 180,000 jobs for freelancers and small and medium-sized companies, which are usually dedicated to this type of action. The Minister of Transport, Raquel Sánchez, explained at the press conference that the transfer criteria were agreed upon jointly with the autonomous communities at the Sectorial Conference and has advanced that a new Conference will be convened in the coming weeks to “address this transfer and consolidate each one of the communities”. “The scope of this aid program is enormous both for citizens, as well as for the capacity to create jobs and in this determined fight against climate change”, the minister expressed in her speech. The Ministry of Transport, Mobility and Urban Agenda estimates that the energy rehabilitation of buildings will lead to savings in consumption of at least 30%. Sánchez commented that 75% of the resources destined for rehabilitation and 100% for the promotion of social rental housing have already been put into operation Declaration of a catastrophic area for the areas affected by fires The declaration of the areas seriously affected by a The civil protection emergency, known as a catastrophic zone, will extend to the territories affected by large fires in 15 autonomous communities, that is, all except Cantabria and Asturias. It was announced by the Government spokesperson and Minister of Territorial Policy, Isabel Rodríguez, who has lamented the forest fires produced in these communities, some 120, which have caused the death of up to three people and the evacuation of 27,500 people from their homes. She has highlighted that the agreement serves to speed up the granting of aid, since with the declaration of a catastrophic area these can begin to be processed even before the damage assessment is made. Likewise, she Rodríguez has recalled that those affected “have other mechanisms from which they will be able to receive help without availing themselves of this decree, such as the management of agricultural insurance.” Specifically, the recovery measures provided for in the agreement and whose execution corresponds to the Ministry of the Interior, are aid for death or absolute and permanent disability. Also included among these are aid for the destruction or damage to basic household goods of the habitual residence, for their replacement or repair, aid to natural or legal persons who have made personal and property benefits, and to the owners of establishments industrial, commercial and services. Decree to oblige slaughterhouses to have video surveillance systems The Council of Ministers has approved a royal decree that guarantees compliance with legislation on animal welfare with the mandatory implementation of video surveillance systems in Spanish slaughterhouses. Thanks to this decree, Spain will be the first country in the European Union with video surveillance systems for the control of animal welfare (SVBA), which will allow additional controls to be carried out to those already carried out in slaughterhouses, as highlighted by the Ministry of Consumption. The regulations will allow the establishment of additional control tools that guarantee that, in all Spanish slaughterhouses (including mobile ones), animal suffering is minimized, for example, during the unloading, transfer, lairage or stunning of animals. “This is a rule that places Spain at the head of Europe in this matter and that, in addition to guaranteeing the welfare of animals during their stay in slaughterhouses, also improves food safety guarantees for consumers”, he assessed. the Minister of Consumption, Alberto Garzón. In this way, the video surveillance cameras must cover the facilities in which live animals are found, including the unloading areas, the driving corridors and the areas where the stunning and bleeding activities are carried out until the death of the animals. In addition, video surveillance systems will not be mandatory in the waiting areas where the means of transport with live animals are located before the start of unloading, but the companies must keep track of the time the animals remain in the vehicles. In the case of poultry and pigs, the installation of the cameras must allow the recording of scalding in order to verify that animals showing signs of life do not undergo this operation. Those responsible for the slaughterhouses must keep the images related to unloading, accommodation in the pens, driving to the stunning area, restraint, stunning and bleeding to death for possible subsequent verification by the corresponding control services. official of the CC.AA. They will also have to ensure the reproduction, copy or transmission of the same to other devices with the same quality as the original recording. Plan to implement tolls on highways from 2024 The Government has already begun the procedures to study the different possibilities aimed at introducing a new toll system on all highways in the country from 2024, as promised with Brussels to exchange for receiving European funds valued at 70,000 million euros in subsidies. The General Directorate of Highways, dependent on the Ministry of Transport, Mobility and Urban Agenda, has commissioned the public consultant Ineco to prepare nine reports to assess a new financing system for highways, according to the documentation published on the contracting portal. Last June, the minister of the branch, Raquel Sánchez, ruled out initiating the corresponding debate with the sector to begin designing this plan, with the aim of giving priority to the economic situation, weighed down both by the pandemic and by the war in Ukraine. However, she reconfirmed that this measure will be applied and advanced that a previous study was already being carried out. In fact, aside from the debate that must be opened with the sector to agree on the best possible system, the plans to implement payment for use on the roads continued. In this way, on June 10, the internal contract between the General Directorate of Roads and Ineco was formalized, and on August 10, this company awarded the consulting services to KPMG. All documents point to the year 2024 as the year from which tolls “could” be implemented. The Council of Ministers will approve the declaration of catastrophic zone for the areas affected by fires See more