The President of the Republic said in a communication to the country, this Wednesday, that he hopes that the state of emergency is coming to an end, without taking it for granted that this will be its last renewal, and admitted local confinements to contain Covid-19 .
“On November 6, 2020 I decreed the second and longest state of emergency that today [yesterday] knows what I would like to be its last renewal until 23:59 on April 30th”, declared Marcelo Rebelo de Sousa, in a communication to the country, from the Belém Palace in Lisbon.
Addressing the Portuguese, the head of State added: “I especially want to ask you for even more effort, to make it impossible for us to go back, so that the state of emergency moves to an end, so that the lack of confinement can always continue. with the assurance that the calendar of restrictions and local confinements, if necessary, guarantee a different summer and autumn”.
This is the 15th time that Marcelo Rebelo de Sousa decrees a state of emergency in the current context of the Covid-19 pandemic, to allow the adoption of measures that imply restrictions on rights, freedoms and guarantees.
The President of the Republic had already said last week that he wanted this to be the last renewal of the state of emergency.
Today, without leaving any certainty on when the state of emergency will end, he said that this legal framework has been in force for "more than five months" and considered that "the most difficult period" was the "general confinement" started on 15 January.
“Almost three months of general confinement. It is true that less restrictive than a year ago, but more intense, not least because the numbers reached have put us in the worst situation in Europe, and later in the world”, he said.
Regarding the lack of confidence, Marcelo Rebelo de Sousa once again defended that "it must follow its course gradually and sensibly" and called for prudence throughout the national territory, to avoid the rise of "now stabilized numbers" and the consequent "pressure on health structures”.
On the "problems in the supply and evaluation of vaccines" verified in the European space, the President of the Republic said that "some obstacles seem insurmountable", but that "the truth is that the more vulnerable of the most vulnerable are already protected".
“It also helps to explain the essential reduction and then stabilization of admissions, intensive care and deaths that we have seen in recent weeks, even with R [SARS-CoV-2 virus transmission rate] and with the number of cases to rise with greater social mobility”, he stressed.
Under the terms of the Constitution, the state of emergency, which allows the suspension of the exercise of certain rights, freedoms and guarantees, cannot last more than 15 days, without prejudice to any renewals with the same time limit.
To enact it, the President of the Republic must hear the Government and have authorization from the Assembly of the Republic, which in this renewal, as in the previous six renewals, was given with votes in favor of PS, PSD, CDS-PP and PAN and the abstention from BE.
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