“We are under internal discussion on a new framework that will have an impulse to clarify responsibilities with the aim of greater operational coordination, an objective of greater territorial and functional coherence of the national system” of Relief operations, stated Luis Montenegro, adding that, within the scope of the organic reorganization of the National Emergency and Civil Protection Authority (ANEPC), it will be created “an operational command with two aspects: the essential aspect of civil protection, but also an aspect of command at the level of firefighters, in operations management”.
The Prime Minister, who presided today at the opening of the 45th Congress of the League of Portuguese Firefighters, in Alcobaça, in the district of Leiria, presented a set of measures that the Government intends to implement and assured the approximately 700 congressmen that, “in the next few days”, “the budget reinforcement that ANEPC requested from the Government, in the amount of 27 million euros”, will be available to pay for the extraordinary expenses of the rural firefighting device and the expenses corresponding to the increase in 25% in remuneration for firefighters who were part of the firefighting device.
Luis Montenegro also announced that support of 10 million euros will also be allocated to a forestry vehicle acquisition program, allocated by Timor-Leste to compensate the regions most affected by the rural fires of 2025.
Among the measures listed, the Prime Minister alluded to the creation of a legal regime that enshrines the professional careers of permanent collaborators of the firefighters’ association movement.
“We have taken on this challenge and we will do so with the aim of ensuring more stability, more possibility of progression and, therefore, also more capacity to attract and retain human resources, because without attracting and retaining human resources the sustainability of the entire sector will be put into question”, he said.
The Government also intends to promote the professionalization of the first intervention with the objective that “in each municipality there are at least three permanent intervention teams” and to ensure permanent financing for fire brigades to avoid “always talking about extraordinary financing”.
Montenegro stated that the Government intends to speed up the procedures for financial transfers from the Firefighter’s Social Protection Fund to guarantee “faster and more effective payments”, encourage increased training and qualification of firefighters and that it will continue, next year, to try to reinforce the means of a special device for fighting rural fires and the Special Civil Protection Force, which it admitted “multiplying by three, or by four”.
Measures that, according to Montenegro, reflect the Government’s commitment that the program planned for the Firefighters “is to be taken seriously, it is to be carried out in a partnership relationship with all representatives of this movement”.
The LBP congress runs until Sunday, “at a time of great dissatisfaction” among volunteer firefighters who demand answers from the Government regarding funding, careers and support for volunteering.
At the congress, which has more than 700 people registered, it will be decided to hold protests if the Government does not provide guarantees regarding the resolution of the problems and compliance with the Government’s program.