“It is clear that this mechanism [international assistance] should have been activated earlier, as everything indicated it was necessary,” stated Paulo Raimundo during a visit to the Medieval Fair in Silves, Algarve.
Speaking to journalists, the general secretary of the PCP expressed his “solidarity with the victims’ families, particularly the family of the individual who died today” in Vila Franca do Deão, in the municipality of Guarda, as well as with the populations and Civil Protection agents.
“We hope this will be the last [death] for those facing this devastation, because every year it’s the same story,” he noted.
According to Paulo Raimundo, the recurring problem of fires year after year “does not lie in the lack of international help, but in the political choices made by successive governments not to invest in land and forest management.”
For the communist leader, “as long as we do not address land management, interior occupation, the fire problem will persist because there are proposals, and everyone knows what needs to be done.”
“The underlying issue is the brutal disinvestment by successive governments in the depopulation of rural areas and the planning and restructuring of forest territories,” he emphasized.
Highlighting that “it is not possible to prevent fires,” Paulo Raimundo argued that “it is possible to invest more in forests and preventive measures to act and prevent the devastating scope of fires as has occurred in recent days.”
When asked who should take responsibility for the response to combating the fires, Paulo Raimundo said, “this is not the time to talk about that.”
“The moment now is to concentrate all forces we have, with well-coordinated means to combat this devastation and minimize personal, animal, and housing damage, only then will we talk about the responsibilities, which do exist,” he remarked.
Asked about Luís Montenegro’s speech on Thursday at the ‘Festa do Pontal’ in Quarteira, marking the PSD’s political comeback, Paulo Raimundo described it as “a speech out of touch with the reality of the country, similar to what he has done recently.”
“They are speeches full of promises and selling illusions. What the Prime Minister wants is for us to talk about the political facts he wants to create,” he stated.
According to Raimundo, issues such as access to housing, wages, and healthcare response were left out of Luís Montenegro’s speech, who preferred “to sell a non-existent country, creating political facts for commentary, particularly the reference to the Constitutional Court.”
“We have a Constitution of the Portuguese Republic. I know that the Prime Minister and the parties supporting his policy, like CDS, Chega, and Iniciativa Liberal, do not favor the Constitution, but they have to ‘deal’ with it because it is the one in place,” he stressed.
