It was a doubt that lasted a few minutes: that was the short time that passed between António Costa warning that the parties in the forest areas will have to be, this week and given the risk of fires, “readapted” and possibly relocated or postponed, and the announcement that the Super Bock Super Rock, which began this Thursday in Meco, will be moved to Parque das Nações.
However, the prime minister, who was speaking from the headquarters of the National Authority for Emergencies and Civil Protection, in Carnaxide -exit minutes before the news of the Super Bock Super Rock broke-, insisted on emphasizing: with the days of great risk, given the dangerous weather conditions, cancellations or changes in the festivals will be “the least of the problems that we are going to have in the country.”
Even because the serious problems will have to do with “the very high risk of fire that covers practically the entire Portuguese territory, and that can cause an extension of the contingency status.
As for the festivals, Costa had already taken several minutes to explain that, with the prohibition of events in forest areas and the negative opinions of both the GNR and Civil Protection, “solution alternatives” with “minimal damage” would have to be studied. “. —we know- if now that in the case of the Meco festival the solution will be to change the location; Regarding the biker rally, the prime minister even said, without explicitly referring to it, that in one of the cases it would be possible change the “architecture” of the event without necessarily having to leave the place where it was planned.
And he was irritated by the various questions about whether the State would cover the potential losses derived from these decisions: “The idea that the State has to handle any eventuality in life for individuals and companies does not exist. It is not the universal insurer”.
“who gave us that the biggest concern was the cancellation of these two events [o Super Bock Super Rock e a concentração motard de Faro] and not the state of gravity that we have”, he shot. As he has been doing in recent days – when he has focused on a tour of various areas of the country to talk about the fires, having canceled the official visit to Mozambique that he had on his agenda – he has preferred to focus on warnings. And in these he did not skimp, speaking of the “extremely high risk” and “huge gravity” of the situation.
For the rest, Costa stayed with the message that he began to launch this Monday, when he was in Góis, Lousã and Viseu to draw attention to the means of fighting fires: it is necessary individual responsibilityavoid any “carelessness” as much as possible and take care to protect others, as in the pandemic.
The parallelism has been used by the President of the Government these days and that is what has happened again: Costa stressed that “the life and safety of people” are the very superior” and that decisions like these, about changes in festivals, they are not a “political option”rather a “technical determination” that no politician should contradict just for “being very nice”.
As in the pandemic, it would not contradict the decisions of the technicians on the necessary isolation periods, he stressed. “The principle”, in times of risk, “is the same”.
Source: Observadora
