In a debate at the Permanent Commission of the Assembly of the Republic regarding the current situation of wildfires, Mariana Leitão, the president of IL, expressed that the country is experiencing the consequences of “three negligences”: doing nothing concerning forest protection, merely reacting without prior preventive work, and political calculation by delaying the use of combat resources.
Leitão questioned the Prime Minister on whether more technical reports are needed to understand the obvious, arguing that the forest legislation is chaotic and requires simplification and consolidation.
“If you are still waiting for another report to tell you this, then, excuse me for saying, but the problem is certainly not with the forest, but with your inability to decide,” she remarked.
The liberal leader also alleged that “almost everything remains to be done” concerning the specialists’ conclusions following the 2017 wildfires, urging the Prime Minister for “more action” instead of “more plans to fill drawers.”
“It is time to break the cycle of years of propaganda and embrace the cycle of execution responsibility. The forest can no longer wait, the populations can no longer wait, and the country can no longer wait. It is not enough to manage emergencies; territorial management is necessary. It is not enough to extinguish fires; tragedies must be prevented,” she urged.
João Almeida, a deputy of CDS-PP, called upon the magistracies and the Public Prosecutor’s Office not to underestimate the crime of forest fires, recalling that this crime’s legal framework is severe and has been deemed, by political decisions, as a priority in the justice system’s actions.
“It is not only politicians’ duty to take these measures, but it is also justice’s duty to be consistent with what politicians implement, and this crime cannot be undervalued,” he argued.
The centrist defended the Government against accusations of lacking proposals for firefighters, claiming that this is a structural issue included in the Government’s program and that the proposals approved in the extraordinary Council of Ministers were exceptional.
João Almeida also stated that “it is false what is being said about the burned area this year,” arguing that calculations and comparisons should only be made at the end of the year and not at this moment.
“It is not correct to state ‘by this day, 10,000 more hectares have burned than in 2017’. We will calculate at the end, we will calculate at the end,” he added.
