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The prime minister of Spain, Pedro Sánchez, announced this Saturday the largest deployment of the armed forces ever made in the country "in times of peace" to help in the rescue and emergency tasks in the areas of the Valencia region affected by the 'Dana' storm which, according to the latest tally, has already claimed the lives of at least 211 people .
Sánchez has detailed that he will send, at the request of the regional president of the Generalitat Valencia government Carlos Mazón, some 5,000 more soldiers to the 3,000 already working on the ground, and that he will double the number of National Police and Guardia Civil personnel, to more than 10,000. The first 4,000 soldiers of the announced contingent will arrive tomorrow (Saturday) in the region.
In a televised address from La Moncloa after chairing a new meeting of the crisis committee to monitor the after effects of the meteorological phenomena, Sánchez described the situation as "tragic" and admitted that the response to date "is not sufficient" but appealed to face «together and united», the most serious flooding of the century.
"It is not now a question of the state taking over from the regional government team. No, now we have to support the local administration with resources and technical support," he said, delegating the burden of the response to the weather catastrophe to the Generalitat with the help of central government.
While both administrations are maintaining emergency Level 2 and neither has opted to take the step of upgrading it to national emergency Level 3, the prime minister stressed that "the capillarity and proximity" of the regional and municipal authorities and "the collective" of the central government have enabled other crises to be overcome. Although none caused by a natural disaster, he admitted, has been on this scale, Madrid believes that "the Valencian authorities know the terrain better than anyone, they know what needs to be done, and if they don't have sufficient resources, they should ask for them", he insisted.
Despite this call to act as one united country "in diversity and in the face of adversity", in his own words, the PM implicitly responded to the criticism of his government's reaction, especially with regard to the deployment of the army . "There will be time to reflect", he said; to evaluate any "negligence" in the action protocols, in what could be read as a veiled allusion to the delay in sending the alert from the Generalitat, or to review how the route map of decision making works.
In addition to announcing the increase in personnel and after a review of the restoration of damaged services, the work on infrastructures - the high-speed rail link between Barcelona and Valencia, the C5 and C6 lines, and freight traffic with Aragon and Catalonia, essential to guarantee the arrival of supplies, the repair of tunnels and damaged water infrastructures - Sánchez has outlined a series of economic measures.
On Tuesday, the cabinet of government minister will approve the declaration of seriously affected areas for those parts of the Valencia, Castilla-La Mancha, Andalucía, Aragon and Catalonia regions that have been hardest hit, and an inter-ministerial commission to promote reconstruction and the economic revival of these areas . Likewise, the Ministry of Finance will authorise the Valencian regional government to spend what is necessary without government authorisation, as required by law, based on the budgetary stability law, which allows it to do so without having to go through Congreso.
Additionally, Sánchez announced that he is in communication with the European Commission and is in the process of applying for the European Solidarity Fund and other community support resources. «We help our European partners when they need us, and now they will help us,» he added.
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