President of the Spanish government considers that this pact will allow to respond better to the fires (and not only)
Pedro Sánchez has announced that he will declare as catastrophic zones all burnt areas in the country. During a visit to the advanced command post of the Jarilla fire – the worst in the history of Estremadura, with 15,500 hectares burned – the president of the Spanish government insisted on the creation of a state pact against climate emergency
“This represents Spain’s government’s commitment to face the reconstruction task, once the fires are extinguished and the economic impact on all affected municipalities is known,” said Pedro Sáchez.
In response to criticism of the Popular Party (PP), which calls for extraordinary means such as the mobilization of the Army – in addition to the Military Emergency Unit, whose operational ones are fully mobilized – Sánchez demanded “institutional loyalty”. And it also implied that the competences in the prevention and extinction of fires belong to the autonomous communities. None of the communities governed by the PP ponders to request the emergency declaration, which would imply the central government to take the crisis management.
Pedro Sánchez argued that, “in the face of a crisis of this magnitude, institutional loyalty, the willingness of shared collaboration, the solidarity between territories and also between countries is fundamental, is a priority to first delimit and then extinguish these fires”. “The Civil Protection System and the Government of Spain were from the first moment available to the Government of the Estremadura Board to face this calamity and this tragedy. And we will continue to do so until the fire and also the task of reconstruction of the affected territories,” he added in the presence of María Guardiola, president of the Autonomous Community of Estremadura.
“Not everything we ordered on Friday has arrived, but we are aware that the means available are the ones that exist and we want to thank all the professionals,” said PP regional president of Estremadura, who has been criticism of the government’s response.
Pedro Sánchez also reiterated his proposal for a state pact to face climate emergency, a measure that the PP’s national board rejected this Monday. “If climate emergency worsens year after year, we have to go beyond the legislatures and transform state policies emergency policies involving all institutions and all rulers. Climate emergency is accelerating and getting worse, particularly in the Iberian peninsula, increasingly evidently every year.”
Pedro Sánchez stated that the climate emergency affects everyone and asked for the collaboration of all political leaders to combat the problem. “The means exist, will be reinforced, but the skills are also well defined and are clear. We all have to engage and compromise in this climate emergency, which does not obey any ideological difference, which affects all citizens equally, regardless of what they vote every four years.”
