The Pink ‘Un observed in an article published on Tuesday, August 29th, that offers of solidarity and the patchy aid received by Portugal’s councils affected by this summer’s rash of forest fires, is not enough to compensate for the general abandonment of rural areas and decades of neglect.
The fires, which have devastated large swathes of central Portugal since June, have highlighted the removal of political power from rural inland areas, according to the FT.
"For many, we are just those people in the mountains," said the mayor of Pedrógão Grande, Valdemar Alves.
"This sense of abandonment is shared by those in sparsely populated villages throughout Portugal, where the inhabitants feel they belong to forgotten communities who live on the wrong side of a deep divide between the urban areas along the Atlantic coast and the poor rural interior," the paper added.
The FT’s view was endorsed by the deputy minister Eduardo Cabrita, who commented to the British newspaper that the councils in the interior of the country have been hit doubly hard by austerity.
It is more difficult for an economy to grow when centralisation requires that "even the organisers of a beach volleyball competition in the north have to ask the Defence and Environment ministers in Lisbon for permission," said Cabrita.
The "limited powers" of municipalities, allied with scarce resources, have contributed to a general rural exodus, leaving behind the elderly in the country's vast interior.
The FT claimed that António Costa's Government is preparing reforms aimed at empowering local authorities ‘in a number of areas,’ a raft of improvements that the public awaits with interest and increasing unease as time drags on.
Comments
The eucalyptus pulp industries ruling families have for decades, since Salazar first got enthusiastic for this alien tree, totally controlled local politics in rural areas. Nothing is licensed, permitted, prohibited, planted, dug up or moved without their say so. And, for generations, them taking a cut of any action. Which obviously paralyses new initiatives - so, until their pockets are lined with Brussels funding, do not expect any deep, meaningful change in rural areas. Which the ruling families will again attach themselves to.