“What I wanted to say to the Portuguese is that on the part of the State we are all motivated and we are all in the spirit of articulation and coordination to reduce risks. But it is true that this effort also needs every citizen and the push of every community”, said Luís Montenegro.
The Prime Minister went yesterday to Mação, in the district of Santarém, to chair the meeting of the Coordination Council of the Agency for the Integrated Management of Rural Fires (AGIF).
At the end, Montenegro issued a statement to journalists, in which it made “a very direct appeal to the Portuguese” to “adopt behaviors that reduce risks” and that, in this way, “they can contribute to having a country that does not have to face every year the plague of rural fires and the consequences they often entail”.
According to the head of government, the path undertaken in recent years “has been positive” and, above all, “the mobilization of various state departments which contribute to the existence of “more preventive policies”.
However, he highlighted that at the same time, there have been contributions to instilling in populations greater motivation for practices that reduce the risk of having more accidents and negative repercussions.
Luís Montenegro is aware that the principle of articulation and coordination is fundamental to prevent and fight rural fires.
“We are actually all on the same side. We are the ones who carry out the functions of government and this agency [AGIF]whose work in recent years has been precisely to develop an action plan, with objectives designed up to 2030 and which we will review in due course”, he underlined.
For the prime minister, last year “was a good year”.
“We hope that this year we can have a performance that does not bring worse news than last year. On the contrary, however, we must be aware that to achieve this objective we cannot lower our guard or reduce everything we can do to prevent and then, of course, fighting when events come and will come IS inevitable,” he summed up.
Montenegro also left a word to the investigating authorities. “In recent years they have been able to identify many of those responsible for the fires and provide evidence which in court has sentenced some to very heavy sentences,” she said.
For the Prime Minister, this contributed “as a tool to de-escalate events and to deter and give a very strong image of the punishment that is deserved for those who offend people and property in such an inhumane way as those who give rise to the criminal occurrence of rural fires”.
