Overview
- Saxony’s Environment Ministry, following Tuesday’s cabinet meeting, put 81 planned flood-protection projects on hold to cut costs.
- The deferred works total about €411 million, with funds redirected to maintain existing dikes, walls, and reservoirs and to carry out safety-critical repairs.
- Of 749 measures in the statewide program, 594 are complete and 26 are under construction, and only 48 of the remaining 129 planned projects will proceed now.
- Projects across the state face delays, including planned works in Pirna and Bad Düben, while near-finished sections in places like Döbeln and Dresden’s Kaditz, Übigau, and Altmickten will continue.
- The ministry said it selected the pause list with the state dam authority using technical and fiscal criteria, and it noted roughly €3.5 billion has been invested since 2002 plus about €180 million for smaller local waterways to build today’s protection level.