Portugal’s parliament has today approved the hearing of defence minister, Nuno Melo, following a request presented by ‘far-right’ party CHEGA.
CHEGA wants clarification on the minister’s actions and decisions taken during the military’s engagement in supporting communities affected by recent storms.
The request was approved by the Parliamentary Committee on National Defence, with votes in favour from CHEGA, PSD social democrats, CDS-PP and PS Socialists.
The hearing has been scheduled for March 12.
During the debate, MP Nuno Simões de Melo – CHEGA’s leader on the committee, stressed the military’s actions on the ground are not in question – acknowledged that the National Emergency and Civil Protection Authority does not depend on the Ministry of Defence, and that coordination with the armed forces in disasters is carried out with the Chief of Staff of the Armed Forces (CEMGFA). However, he argued that the hearing was important in order to try to understand whether Nuno Melo had given any indication that the military’s level of readiness should be increased.
CHEGA also wants to know what measures the minister took to coordinate with the Minister of Internal Administration – who has meantime resigned – and “why it took so long to coordinate overall”.
The party also wants to know the resources and level of operational capacity, as well as the degree of readiness of the Army’s emergency military support unit.
On behalf of the PSD, MP Bruno Vitorino pointed out that the country is facing a phenomenon “unprecedented in recent decades” and that naturally “not everything would go well” – but also “not everything went badly”.
Although he considered that Nuno Melo may not be the most appropriate person to respond to CHEGA’s concerns – as some matters are not within his remit – the PSD MP said he would vote in favour of the motion for the sake of transparency and to “restore some truth”.
On behalf of PS Socialists, Luís Dias stressed that this type of natural phenomenon will become increasingly common and that the country must learn from what has been happening, and adapt the response of its institutions.
Dias stated that “it is obvious that not everything went well, otherwise the interior minister would not have resigned”.
On behalf of the CDS-PP, MP João Almeida disputed criticism that the increase in the armed forces’ level of readiness had been too slow – or that the military had been “asleep” at the onset of the storms – emphasising (the message given in a press conference yesterday) that there are procedures to be followed.
This debate comes at a critical period of Portugal’s ‘climate emergency’: even if further storms are not forecast, the damages this far – and the risks still evident – make every day an ‘unknown’: landslides and/ or the risk of landslides and subsidence are now affecting multiple areas, in different proportions.
Source material: LUSA
