Portugal Safety and Security Report Wednesday 28th September 2022
Good morning – Some good news for UK citizens in Portugal that after a long wait there is more positive news concerning the new residency card for British national. Yesterday the Minister of Internal Administration said this Monday that he hopes that the approximately 36,000 British citizens living in Portugal will have the new post-Brexit residence card by the end of the year. Centres are already operating on the mainland in Cascais and Loulé.
He stated that “By the end of the year, that is, until the 31st of December, we really hope to have responded to these 36,000 British citizens”, a announcing the opening of 13 more service points for British citizens from next month, in conjunction with the Agency for Administrative Modernization (AMA) and the Institute of Registries and Notaries (IRN). These will be in Lisbon, Faro, Marinha Grande, Pombal, Coimbra, Castelo Branco, Porto, Seixal, Santarém, Beja and Lagos. More will be announced in due course.
It is important to regularly check if you have received any emails from SEF asking you to arrange your appointment online and that you have your Brexit password for the SEF portal at hand. Once the centres are operating do not attempt to visit a centre to try and get an appointment as all appoints ate arranged direct with SEF through the BREXIT portal.
Turning to the weather – October promises to be, at least at its beginning, an extension of the already long summer, with the return of, the anticyclone positioning itself northwest of the peninsula, in a wedge in the Gulf of Biscay and blocking everything that can approach it from Continental Portugal, with this setup we’ll have east winds, very hot and dry, increasing rural fire risk. Unfortunately to all the models in this scenario it is very likely, the drought will continue and there’s no end in sight.
As such we must remain vigilant to the risk of rural fires taking all the relevant precautions. Again we emphasise the importance of obtain authorization before burning cut and piled debris and if approved to ensure all the safety measures are taken.
Related to this is the ongoing drought situation. Yesterday the government announced the creation of “a strategic reserve of water in the reservoirs associated with hydroelectric uses” identified in the diploma.
The Government determined, as of October 1, a temporary suspension in the water resources of 15 reservoirs, “until the minimum quotas of their useful capacity that will be established are reached”. This move is clearly aimed at ensuring the continuing supply of electricity to meet foreseeable demands. With drought conditions continuing therefore it is essential that we do everything possible to conserve water. Please follow the advice which we promote through our Facebook page from time to time.
Lastly the Minister of Internal Administration, José Luís Carneiro, has dismissed yesterday the disagreement of the League of Portuguese Firefighters (LBP) regarding the integration of these operatives in the new civil protection structure, considering that the firefighters will comply with the law in force.
The minister was reacting to statements by the president of the LBP, António Nunes, who on Saturday, on the side lines of the extraordinary meeting of the LBP national council, stated that, at the moment, the firefighters “do not feel comfortable with the integration of the new civil protection structure, with its sub-regional commands, refuse to integrate this situation and have their own operational organization”, wanting to remain as they are currently.
The new national structure of civil protection, which has regional commands, which took office very recently. There are five regional commands, and there will be 23 subcommands, corresponding to the inter-municipal communities from 1st January 2023. This is a matter of organizing the national Civil Protection,” he explained.
“Another matter has to do with how firefighters and humanitarian organizations decide to organize themselves as firefighters. This is a matter for the autonomy of the associations themselves, naturally fulfilling the duties they have with the country’s civil protection, and with the integration in what corresponds to the national civil protection system”, he added.
Currently most firefighters are part of corporations (associations) which are privately owned and in each district are represented by federation representatives on the LBP. The LBP has no operational competence, this falling on the operational commanders of each brigade. The LBP is mainly responsible for continuity and regulation as far as the rules of the associations as well as fiscal and logistical matters are concerned.
The ANEPC has an overall responsibility of operational command through civil protection agents which include the firefighters, GNR, PSP etc. This issue needs to be resolved to ensure that the current integration continues in way that corresponds to the national civil protection system as the minister outlined.
With that have a safe week ahead.
News
Covid-19. Portugal exceeds 25 thousand deaths since the beginning of the pandemic
More than six thousand fatalities have been recorded since the beginning of the year, 40 of them in the last week. Portugal is the 39th country to exceed the barrier of 25 thousand deaths.
Portugal surpassed this weekend the 25 thousand deaths from Covid-19, more than two and a half years since the beginning of the pandemic, which had its first case and death in the country in March 2020.
According to DGS figures released this Monday, the country now has 25,008 fatalities, 40 of them in the last week. Since the beginning of the year, more than six thousand deaths from Covid-19 have been recorded.
The mortality of the pandemic has stabilized since the beginning of August, now standing at four weekly deaths per million inhabitants. The country currently has almost 5.5 million cases since March last year.
Portugal is thus the 39th country to register 25,000 victims of the pandemic, and is currently the 35th country with the most deaths per million inhabitants.
The USA is the country with the most victims of Covid-19, the only one with more than one million deaths, followed by Brazil, with about 685 thousand deaths, and India, with 528 thousand deaths.
In the latest report on the evolution of the pandemic, the DGS and INSA warned of a “possible trend reversal” in the number of cases of SARS-CoV-2 infection, but that Covid-19 mortality and hospital occupancy remain unchanged and stabilized. The number of new infections by the SARS-CoV-2 coronavirus per 100,000 inhabitants, accumulated in the last seven days, was 178 cases, with “a possible reversal of an upward trend” at the national level, according to the document from the Directorate-General for Health. (DGS) and the Ricardo Jorge Institute (INSA) released this Friday.
Sweden detected underwater explosions before Russian gas pipeline leaks
Sweden has detected two underwater explosions, “most likely due to detonations”, close to where leaks were detected in pipelines carrying Russian gas to Europe, a Swedish seismic institute announced today.
A first “massive energy emission” of a magnitude of 1.9 was recorded Sunday night at 02:03 local time (01:03 in Lisbon) in the south-east of the Danish island of Bornholm, said Peter Schmidt of the National Seismic Network. Sweden, to the French agency AFP. The Swedish institute recorded a second occurrence of magnitude 2.3 at 19:04 local time on Monday (18:04 in Lisbon), in the northeast of the island. “We interpret it as coming with the highest probability of some form of detonation,” Schmidt said.
Danish and Swedish authorities have detected leaks in the Nord Stream 1 pipeline, which Russia closed in early September, and in the Nord Stream 2 pipeline, which was never put into operation due to a lack of authorization from Germany, following the Russian invasion of Ukraine. . Despite not being operational, the two pipelines operated by a consortium of Russian giant Gazprom were full of gas.
Ukraine today accused Russia of responsibility for leaking gas pipelines, denouncing a “terrorist attack” against the European Union. “The large-scale gas leak from Nord Stream 1 is nothing more than a terrorist attack planned by Russia and an act of aggression against the European Union,” Ukrainian presidential adviser Mykhailo Podoliak said on Twitter, quoted by AFP.