In September 2019, a DANA destroyed the Vega Baja del Segura region, south of the Valencian Community. The storm left six dead, 4,000 people evacuated and 678 rescued, eighty roads closed and economic damage never seen to date. The disaster caused a reflection in the autonomous government chaired by the socialist Ximo Puig in coalition with Compromís and Unidas Podemos on the coordination of emergencies in the autonomous community.
In September of the following year, in the general policy debate, the president announced the creation of a Valencian emergency unit, which he compared to the UME (military emergency unit), a body that would be equipped with a thousand troops, “professionals endowed with the versatility of forest firefighters, a vital body in the pandemic.” Puig said: “We need an instrument that accelerates the response to a crisis of great magnitude.”
The Valencian Emergency Unit was created by decree on February 22, 2023, four months before the regional elections. It was defined as “a management unit of an operational nature and coordination of the Generalitat through the Valencian Agency for Security and Emergency Response”, dependent on the Ministry of Justice. Its purpose was “intervention and collaboration anywhere in the Valencian Community or in support of other autonomous communities together with State institutions and Public Administrations, in cases of serious risk, catastrophe, or other public needs”, with autonomy. to work.
It was a coordination body for the firefighters of the provincial and emergency consortiums in the event of disasters, according to sources from the previous executive. The special force was in an embryonic phase but already had a budget, facilities and the purchase of equipment was being managed. It united firefighters and foresters to “improve coordinated response in emergency situations,” these sources explain, with special emphasis on forest fires and meteorological phenomena. It had autonomous operation within the framework of emergency management. After 40 years, the Consell considered that the response of the Generalitat Valenciana had to be modified.
The agency was in an incipient phase when the change of government occurred, endowed with a budget of 9 million euros for its development that year. Directly, it had Forest Firefighters Units (UBF), forestry fire engines and helicarried forest firefighter units, in addition to other operational and logistical coordination resources.
The UVE was the first public body to eliminate the PP and Vox Executive chaired by Carlos Mazón, who considered it a superfluous expense, in line with the popular president’s administrative slimming plan. Some firefighter unions – the Platform of Firefighters and Firefighters of the Valencià Country – argued that the unit “doubled” the work of the consortia. Sources from the previous Executive defend that it was a coordination body.
The Minister of Justice who promoted the repeal, Elisa Núñez, from Vox, He promised to provide “stability, professionalism and bold solutions that reverse the painful and devilish situation that the Botanist has left in terms of emergencies” and considered that the body was a duplicity that added “more complexity to the management of emergencies in the Valencian Community.” . The far-right party considered that the body “did not help to redefine that model, but rather made it worse and more complicated and only meant delving into lack of coordination and disaster.” The president of the Generalitat defended this Wednesday that “it was just another fictitious organization, with zero more firefighters, zero more material means and zero efficiency”, in the face of criticism for its elimination.
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