The Environment Minister assured this Wednesday that the government will “implement very important reforms” in the energy, water and forestry sectors, indicating that structural changes in the energy plan are already underway.
“The Portuguese can count on the government to carry out very important reforms for their lives in the fields of energy, water and forests during these four years,” said Duarte Cordeiro during the debate on the state of the nation, which will take place this Wednesday in the Assembly of the Republic. shortly after hearing questions from MPs from PS, PSD, Chega, Bloco de Esquerda (BE), PCP and PAN.
Duarte Cordeiro ensured that with regard to water, the government would “carry out reforms taking into account areas where recurring droughts occur”, including cases such as the Algarve, Alentejo or Mediu Tejo, using “funding sources” such as the Plan for Recovery and Resilience (PRR ) or “inventing new ways of financing” to create “water distribution infrastructure for reuse, salinization stations and more efficient resource management”.
Shortly after Left Bloc parliamentary leader Pedro Filipe Soares criticized the fact that Algarve’s 40 golf courses use potable water, the environment minister said the government’s goal was to double the amount of water to be reused by the end of the year. Algarve and by the end of this mandate to achieve eight cubic hectometers of water for reuse in the Algarve.”
“And we want to speed up, and because we want to speed up, tomorrow in the Council of Ministers we are going to simplify the licensing of water for reuse,” he said.
Regarding the energy sector, Duarte Cordeiro underlined that the executive is “carrying out a structural reform of the energy sector with a focus on renewable energy”, stressing that Portugal will reach 2026 by “having reached the target by 2030 of including renewable energy sources in electricity generation” .
The government “is investing in projects in different ways, whether it be solar or wind farms or in terms of hybridization of dams using installed capacity, and we are going to do this by accelerating, realizing that this is the main and most important structural response that we can take to reduce electricity prices,” he stressed.
Regarding fuel prices, which were criticized by the PKP and the Left Bloc, who accused the government of “covering up” the oil companies, Duarte Cordeiro assured that the government “would not hesitate to intervene” in profit margins, “if the regulatory body is an agency to propose any that is interference with margining.”
In this regard, Duarte Cordeiro stressed, in particular, the commitment of the executive branch to hydrogen and said that the country “has a huge potential, also to meet the needs of the European market in the current conditions.”
“There is a report that the regulator has been publishing since the beginning of June. If the regulator, after listening to the antimonopoly body, makes a proposal to the government, we will act immediately,” he assured.
Regarding forestry, in response to a statement by Social Democrat MP João Moura Duarte, Cordeiro assured that the government has “all sectors of the economy” to “join in raising the value of the forest.”
“97% of Portuguese forests are private and we must hold them accountable by valuing the territory and striving for more efficient, balanced and planned management. No one is excluded for this purpose, regardless of the responsibility we take on,” he stressed.
In response to a statement from PAN’s sole deputy, Inés de Souza Real, Minister for the Environment and Climate Change, said the government will present a strategy on stray animals in September.
Author: Lusa
Source: CM Jornal
