The Minister of Territorial Cohesion, Manuel Castro Almeida, stated on Thursday that he, along with the Minister of Agriculture, held meetings with various mayors and secretaries of state, emphasizing that the discussions were “very useful” for consolidating “some ideas” already being prepared for the extraordinary Council of Ministers.
“We are still in time to gather some ideas and concerns that were strongly reinforced and are not yet adequately addressed; we will seek to address them in today’s decree,” he remarked to journalists during a visit to Sernancelhe, a municipality also affected by forest fires.
In response to a query about the request for a state of calamity by some mayors, Castro Almeida noted that “some mayors are in favor and others are not.”
“A declaration of calamity has advantages but also many disadvantages and must be carefully considered. Some municipalities would benefit from it while others would be disadvantaged. It is not a straightforward issue, and we need to analyze it very carefully. We must prioritize the public interest and the important thing is to solve the problems,” he emphasized.
The minister highlighted that the “main problem” is related to “small agricultural holdings,” adding that the Government has “a quick solution.”
“What we agreed with the mayors is that next week – we will now pass the legislation – the forms will be available for people to submit their applications, which are presented at the City Hall, forwarded to the CCDR, and the CCDR evaluates and pays within 10 days or less. At least, for the first few thousand requests that will appear,” he stated.
Castro Almeida noted that in the North region alone, they expect “about five thousand requests for support from small farmers.”
“We need to act very quickly because that is the main mission. There are issues with animals and the livelihood of animals and people, and we will address that swiftly,” he noted.
The minister, standing alongside a factory that had been completely burned, stressed that “the State must persist in these matters.” “The State is not wealthy, but it is supportive. Any self-respecting State must be supportive, we must be here for these situations, and we must be fair.”
“That is what we will seek to do in the decree that we will pass today in the Council of Ministers, to address situations that facilitate scenarios like this [referring to the factory],” he said.
Regime Pact? “We will pass a law to be effective in the future”
“In today’s Council of Ministers, we will pass a law that will be effective in the future. Last year, we made a law for last year only, and this year we are not making a law for this year only; it is a law intended to be effective in the future and will be adapted year by year,” he emphasized.
And he added, “It aims to be a framework law to safeguard, to regulate the support that the State should provide to people affected by these uncontrolled fires.”
The minister highlighted, however, that “the problem is different”: “Why do we face this [fires] every year? Every year there are fires, they just cannot be this gigantic in scale.”
[News in update]
