Luis Montenegro says Costa and Medina should apologize to the Portuguese

PSD President Luis Montenegro felt on Monday that the prime minister and finance minister should apologize “to the Portuguese” for “investing more than three billion euros” in TAP.

“Honestly, it is necessary that Dr. Fernando Medina and Dr. Antonio Costa apologize to the Portuguese and take responsibility for having invested more than three billion euros of our money, which is no longer used for other infrastructures, for other investments in order to save the company , which they themselves wanted to nationalize. Therefore, for me personally, [a privatização da TAP] This does not surprise me, because I never had any doubts,” the PSD president told journalists in Guarda, where he is based with the Sentir Portugal initiative, on Monday before starting a meeting with the Acreditar movement.

Luis Montenegro reacted to the statement made in Madrid, Spain by the Minister of Finance, Fernando Medina, about the privatization process of the TAP airline, which will “soon” be submitted to the Council of Ministers.

“I hope that I will soon be able to present to the Council of Ministers the beginning of the TAP privatization process,” the minister said in a press conference in Madrid, along with Spanish Economy Minister Nadia Calvinho.

Regarding Fernando Medina’s statement, the PSD leader said that “it should be a big surprise for the Portuguese”.

And he justified himself: “Today we want to convey with a sponge the reality that the Portuguese are well aware of. In 2016 TAP was in the process of privatization. Most of the capital was already private, and the idea was that this process would stop developing until all of TAP’s capital was private.”

“We had a government supported by the minister Fernando Medina, who at that time was the mayor of Lisbon, led by Dr. António Costa, who is still the prime minister who holds this post today, who wanted to nationalize first part and then all TAR capital. In order to come to the conclusion after almost seven years that it is still better, or better, to privatize the capital of TAR,” he said.

The social democratic leader said he believes “the future of TAP should be private. The future of the Portuguese airline is to be in the market, certainly fulfilling the strategic interests of the country, but acting as a private company.” .

“Whoever had doubts about who walks here over bumps, who walks here in zigzags, is Dr. Antonio Costa, Dr. Fernando Medina and, by the way, also Dr. Pedro Nuno Santos, who was a minister with special duties in this matter, and even Dr. Pedro Marquez, who, it should not be forgotten, is a member of the European Parliament, and it was the former Minister of Infrastructure who was at the origin of this decision,” he said.

And he continued: “In other words, this socialist team shows its incompetence, shows that it does not know where it wants to go and does not have the humility to take responsibility.”

“Apologize, and then we will be able to look at the future of TAP as it should be, and, unfortunately, losing seven years of our lives, as well as losing more than three billion euros,” Montenegro concluded.