Prevention and, above all, the response to the train of storms that hit Portugal revealed our structural weaknesses and institutional inertia in the face of extreme weather events. It seems clear that Civil Protection was unable to adequately safeguard the populations, critical infrastructures and business fabric of the affected areas. The bad weather revealed a country vulnerable to the fury of the elements and far behind in the essential adaptation to climate change.
The Government is now seeking to react with the Transformation, Recovery and Resilience Program (PTRR). The plan seems well thought out, consistent and ambitious to me. Not only does it propose to support affected populations and organizations, it also aims to strengthen our resilience in the face of extreme weather events and reinforce the country’s competitiveness and cohesion, in conjunction with the so-called “Transformative Agenda”. All this without jeopardizing public accounts and without arrears and procedural bureaucracy, promises the Executive.
Obviously, despite being well structured and with a strategic vision, the PTRR will only be successful if there is, in the short/medium term, effective capacity to execute the different measures. Now, the uproar that the program raised in Parliament does not contribute to its good and rapid implementation. Of course, there needs to be democratic scrutiny, but, given the urgency of the measures, government action should deserve the benefit of the doubt and enjoy a modicum of political consensus to put the PTRR into practice.
For the PTRR to be successful, especially in the recovery area, a workforce is needed – something that is not abundant in a rapidly aging country, particularly affecting labor-intensive sectors, such as civil construction. The shortage of unskilled workers has been alleviated by immigrants, whose entry into the country is now, rightly, more regulated. The implementation of the PTRR in a timely manner will, most likely, require an exceptional easing of access rules to the country.
The need to reinforce the workforce to respond to an exceptional situation also shows us that we really need a labor law that speeds up hiring, making employment contracts more flexible with regard to their duration, schedules and costs. The proposal to review the CLT goes in this direction and, therefore, would allow us today to respond more effectively to labor shortages to recover the country. This is one of the lessons learned from the drama we are experiencing: adaptation to climate change also involves a more agile labor market, which guarantees the capacity to react in adverse scenarios, notably for the reconstruction of infrastructures and the continuity of basic services and business activities.
Leave a Reply