Antônio Cotrim / LUSA
The Prime Minister, Luís Montenegro
Luís Montenegro spoke about the new program; and has Marcelo and Seguro. “The country has never cut so much bureaucracy.”
This Thursday’s fortnightly debate, in the Legislative Assembly, had a unique point: the government’s response to the recent sequence of storms.
The Prime Minister announced that the global amount of supports of the State to respond to the consequences of bad weather already add up 3.5 billion euros (and not ), arguing that there were exceptional responses to “an exceptional challenge”. “The country has never cut so much bureaucracy”said Luís Montenegro.
Reviewing the main measures already approved by the Government, Montenegro highlighted that 14,491 people have already resorted to support for rebuilding houses and 3,662 to emergency support.
On the economic side, there were 4,697 applications for lines of credit for reconstruction and 6,131 applications for support for farmers, in addition to ‘lay-off’ requests covering 1,385 workers.
Effective response
Still in this context, the Prime Minister defended the Government’s actions in responding to the consequences of bad weather, saying that the State had never “responded with this speed and effectiveness” in similar national and international situations.
“In short, the The State never does everything perfectly, but the truth is that it has never responded so quickly and effectively in the face of a catastrophe. Comparison with similar situations both in Portugal and abroad is capable of highlighting this”, he said.
“From the first moment we coordinated, communicated, decided and were on the ground. We mobilized all resources to meet the many and urgent needs of the Portuguese”, he defended.
“Not everything went well”
Even so, Luís Montenegro admitted that not everything worked out. In the final phase of the debate, the PSD parliamentary leader, Hugo Soares, left words of thanks to all the public entities that were on the ground and which, according to him, demonstrate that “the State did not fail”.
The Prime Minister joined in the thanks, which he also extended to many actors from the social and private sector, who he considered to have collaborated “in an absolutely incredible way” on the ground.
“That doesn’t mean everything went well. Those who rush to say that ‘the prime minister is insensitive’, or even think ‘he is irresponsible’, are unaware of the effort people madewhich public, private and social organizations did, and do not value effort, merit, solidarity”, he lamented.
“Maybe it didn’t go wellfor sure. Will there ever be a catastrophe in which everything goes well? (…) What can you do? You can create quick, emergency support mechanisms, and you can have a device prepared to be quick to assist those who are in an emergency situation. And that’s what was done”, he defended.
In direct dialogue with André Ventura, the prime minister also admitted that Portugal’s Integrated Emergency and Security Network System (SIRESP) there was “one or another occasional failure, when all the structures were completely destroyed”.
PTRR
Montenegro took advantage of the debate to announce that the Government will approve, this Friday, the general lines of the PTRR, the program “Portugal Transformation, Recovery and Resilience”.
It will be the creation of a “fund that can be available to respond to calamity situations”.
The Prime Minister awaits the collaboration of the still President of the Republic, Marcelo Rebelo de Sousa, and his successor, Antonio José Safe, in the creation of this PTRR fund.
The new minister
The Prime Minister stated that he will propose to the President of the Republic, next week, Maria Lúcia Amaral’s successor in the functions of Minister of Internal Administrationthus completing the “recomposition” of its executive.
“Next week, the Government will have its composition completely reestablished with a proposal [de nomeação] what I will do to the President of the Republic”, declared the leader of the executive.
During the debate, Paulo Núncio (CDS-PP) warned the other deputies that criticism about the absence of a Minister of Internal Administration was not justified: “The minister is here!” – pointing to Luís Montenegro.
Costa’s vacation
The CDS-PP parliamentary leader was at the center of the debate when he said that António Costa “took vacation” a week after the 2017 forest firesin Pedrógão Grande.
“Three weeks after the storms there is no evidence that [Luís Montenegro] took a vacation, as former Prime Minister António Costa did a week after the fire in Pedrógão, where 66 people died”, he declared, soon after hearing vehement protests coming from the PS bench and shouts of “slander”.
Afterwards, the parliamentary leader of the PS, Eurico Brilhante Dias requested an interpellation to the Board of the Assembly of the Republic to counter that there is evidence that António Costa, on June 17, 2017, the day the Pedrógão Grande fire broke out, was at the National Civil Protection Authority, in Carnaxide. The following day, according to Eurico Brilhante Dias, António Costa was in Pedrógão Grande.
Paulo Núncio, however, defends the thesis that the fires in Pedrógão only ended on June 25, 2017. And that a week later, on July 1, 2017, the former prime minister went on vacation.
