Government presents support measures for areas affected by the fires
The European Commission has authorised Portugal's request to mobilise 500 million euros from cohesion funds.
What?
On Thursday, the Government presented a package of support for the populations and regions affected by the recent fires.
Among the measures announced is house reconstruction financing as well as lines of finance to compensate for the losses of farmers and businesses affected. A Forest Plan is also expected to be announced by the Minister of Agriculture within the nexy three months.
The full measures can be consulted here (in portuguese).
Meanwhile, the number of deaths caused by last week’s wild fires in northern Portugal has risen to nine.
A woman in her 80s, admitted to hospital during the fires because of injuries sustained, died in the early hours of this morning, followed by a man – also being treated in hospital since the fires.
This takes Albergaria-a-Velha’s death toll to four (the first two involved a firefighter who suffered a sudden death after hours of intense combat, and a young forestry worker caught by advancing flames).
The tally of injuries has also been updated to 177.
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Meanwhile, PM Luís Montenegro has announced that the European Commission has authorised Portugal's request to mobilise 500 million euros from cohesion funds to respond to damages.
Luís Montenegro, who was speaking to journalists this afternoon at the São Bento Palace, said that he had held talks with the president of the European Commission, Ursula Von der Leyen, over the weekend and had received confirmation that there would be a rapid source of funding to repair the damage caused by last week's fires.
The Prime Minister emphasises that an ‘exhaustive survey’ of the damage is being carried out, in contact with local authorities and the security forces, and intends to announce ‘concrete actions’ at this week's Council of Ministers.
Actions made possible by the 500 million euros of cohesion funds that were earmarked for the coming years and which Portugal will now be able to access, having already received permission from the European Commission - which is why Montenegro made a point of leaving a ‘word of deep gratitude’ to Von der Leyen.
The head of government explains that, when it comes to covering damage, the rate of reimbursement can ‘exceptionally’ be as high as 100 per cent. ‘It will be up to the government to determine the terms under which this will happen,’ he said, adding that the management will be done entirely by the Executive, “without any pre-requisites or pre-approvals”.
The Prime Minister said that the intention is to ‘greatly simplify’ the procedures in order to ‘eliminate bureaucracy’. However, he emphasises that the process must be ‘objective’ and ‘fair’. This means, he adds, that there will be no place for ‘covering losses that do not arise from these events’.
Investing on fire investigation
The announcement of European funds to respond to the fires came after the government's pre-announced meeting with the police and justice authorities to discuss the investigation of forest fire offences in Portugal.
The meeting was attended not only by the Executive (represented by the Prime Minister, but also by the Ministers of Justice and Internal Administration), but also by the Attorney General of the Republic (PGR), the national director of the Judicial Police (PJ), the national director of the Public Security Police (PSP) and the general commander of the National Republican Guard (GNR).
After the extraordinary meeting of the Council of Ministers last week, the Prime Minister had announced that he wanted to see the investigations into the forest fires deepened.
This afternoon, Luís Montenegro said that there would be an ‘exhaustive survey of all the enquiries that are already underway’ into the offence of setting fires in forests.S
Hidden interests
The aim of this exhaustive survey of all the cases under investigation is, explains Luís Montenegro, ‘to make sure that no particular interest can be preponderating in the ignitions’.
The expression had already been used by the head of government after the extraordinary Council of Ministers, but once again Luís Montenegro didn't clarify which alleged ‘interests’ he was referring to, and once again didn't point the finger in any particular direction.
The Prime Minister only emphasised that he wants all the suspects, all the clues and all the evidence to be investigated ‘to the last consequences’.
Asked whether the government intended to review the way in which sentences are applied to those convicted of forest fire offences, Luís Montenegro relegated this responsibility to the judiciary.
However, he added, these are ‘individual court decisions’.
‘It's not up to the government to intervene in that area,’ he said.