Portugal’s parliamentary political parties agreed today, June 29th, to set up an Independent Technical Commission to investigate the great fire of Pedrógão Grande in which over 60 people died.
The proposal to set up the inquiry will be voted in on Friday but was not endorsed by the Communists and the Greens. The establishment of the commission was accepted by a large majority of MPs and it will run for a maximum three months.
The PSD, the PS, the CDS-PP and the Left Bloc agreed on the Commission's creation "for the rapid analysis and determination of the facts regarding the fires that occurred in Pedrogão Grande, Castanheira de Pêra, Ansião, Alvaiázere, Figueiró dos Vinhos, Arganil, Góis, Penela, Pampilhosa da Serra, Oleiros and Sertã between the 17th and 24th of June, 2017."
Already this afternoon, in a parliamentary debate requested by the PSD on the subject of the recent fires, the Minister of Internal Affairs, Constança Urbano de Sousa, said that the commission has the full support of the Government. "We support from the first hour a technical committee that can give us answers," she said, explaining that "as far as the Ministry of Internal Affairs is concerned, we are collecting, analyzing in depth, and cross-checking data, so we can have some answers." All this information, she assured MPs, will be made available to the new Independent Technical Commission.
The Commission will assemble 12 “specialists of recognised national and international merit who should have expertise in areas such as civil protection, forest fire prevention and control, climate science, forest management, communications, and risk analysis."
Six people will be appointed by the President of the Assembly and the other six will come from academia and will be nominated by the Council of Rectors of Portuguese Universities.
The independence of the members of the Commission will be "guaranteed by law," so the group will have to show that they are subject to zero political influence and have nothing to do with companies or organisations that have anything to do with forest fire prevention, or safety and control systems.
"There are concrete and objective questions that can and should be clarified as soon as possible," and the answers "must come from a prioritised technical and specialised inquiry that can weigh up the various dimensions of the problems," reads the proposal.
The costs of the Commission will paid for by the Assembly of the Republic and at the end of the work, a report will be produced with conclusions and recommendations which will go to parliament.
