Portugal has received authorisation from the European Commission to access €500 million from cohesion funds to help cover the damage caused by the fires.
Authorities in Portugal have started assessing the damage in the municipalities most affected by fires in the central and northern regions of the country as plans get underway for reconstruction.
The government has decided to allocate €500 million in EU funds for Portugal’s reconstruction, which was a major announcement by Prime Minister Luis Montenegro on Monday.
“The dialogue with the President of the European Commission has led to the Commission’s decision to allow Portugal to access €500 million from the cohesion funds allocated for the country over the next few years,” PM Montenegro told reporters.
“The funding is intended to cover the damage incurred, with a contribution and reimbursement rate that may exceptionally reach 100 per cent.,” he added.
With severe damage to homes, crops, and industrial facilities, the Portuguese government has said it wants the reconstruction effort to be swift and unbureaucratic.
Local officials in the central region say an evaluation of the damage caused by the fires should be completed by the end of next week.
Meanwhile, the Portuguese prime minister has said that an investigation is underway to identify those responsible for deliberately setting fires in certain areas.
Montenegro said the investigation will seek to determine the motivation of the suspected perpetrators and their sponsors.
The PM also said a comprehensive review will be conducted of all ongoing investigations into the offense of setting forest fires.
“The correlation between these incidents will be thoroughly analyzed to investigate the motivations of those arrested for this crime, ensuring that no specific interests are driving fires that are not caused by natural events or negligence,” said PM Montenegro.
The fires that hit the north and centre of the country last week left nine people dead and more than 160 injured.
According to the Public Security Police, around 9,000 calls related to the forest fires were received daily from September 15 to 19. These fires burned around 135,000 hectares of forest between September 15 and 20, bringing the total area affected this year to nearly 147,000 hectares, marking it the third worst record in the last decade.
