The PSD President threatened this Monday to terminate the agreement on the location of the new Lisbon airport if the report drawn up by an independent technical committee was not “100% independent” and considered that the renationalization of the REN was “worthy of reflection”.
In an interview with TVI/CNN Portugal, Montenegro was asked whether the PSD would honor the agreement reached with the PS in September 2022 to select the site for the new Lisbon airport.
“The only thing the SDP is not obliged to do is comply with anything. The SDP sets the conditions, the government is the one who must fulfill them, the SDP does not have the ability to maneuver, we do not manage the process,” they answered. leader of the SDP.
Montenegro said the PSD had imposed conditions on the government, including that work at Humberto Delgado airport “be carried out immediately,” stressing that the agreement was concluded a year ago and that work “has not yet begun.”
On the other hand, Montenegro said the agreement also provides for the creation of an independent technical committee of scientists who “have not previously expressed an opinion on this issue.”
“I don’t want to doubt the independence of the people, but I doubted it and warned the Prime Minister about it when I saw the president of the independent technical commission [Rosário Partidário] to say that he is going to decide where the new airport will be located,” he said, stressing that this is not what he agreed “with Dr. António Costa and the PS.”
The Social Democratic leader stressed that “technical experts are required to say what the advantages and disadvantages of each place are,” adding that he hoped the report compiled by an independent technical committee “will not be riddled with any special interest.” no one.”
“I really hope. It can only be like this… This is either 100% technical and 100% strict work, or they don’t count on anything from the SDP at all,” he emphasized.
Montenegro also said it hoped that after receiving the report it would be able to prepare an opinion and that this opinion would be “in agreement with the government’s”, which it believed would be “beneficial for Portugal”.
“But neither I am responsible for the government, nor the government is responsible for me. I can’t guarantee that we will have this agreement, I can guarantee that we will look very carefully, with great caution, at what the technicians will do.” they will tell us,” he assured.
In this interview, the SDP leader also discussed TAP’s privatization process, advocating the sale of 100% of the airline’s capital, although admitting that this could be done in stages.
However, when asked about the sale of the Spanish airline Iberia, Montenegro considered that from a strategic point of view it would be “very dangerous” for the country to “lose” TAP “to an operator with the characteristics of Iberia, namely the ‘hub’ that it has in Madrid.”
When asked about the possible renationalization of other national companies, Montenegro said that he did not like the word “renationalize” but believed that the privatization of REN was “worth considering.”
“Looking back, the only company with which I had doubts about whether we benefited from privatization was REN, although this was an imposition they left on us in the memorandum of understanding with the troika. If not for this, and I assume “It is in Portugal’s strategic interests that REN is owned by the state,” he said.
Author: Lusa
Source: CM Jornal
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