The two officials spoke to journalists at the end of the meeting with the Prime Minister, António Costa, in São Bento, at the meeting in which they delivered the final report on the strategic options to increase airport capacity in the Lisbon region.
Asked what she had heard from António Costa after presenting the report, Maria do Rosário Partidário, from the Independent Technical Commission (CTI) stated: “One of the things we heard and that everyone must have heard is that he has It’s a shame not to be the decision maker because he has a very solid basis for making the decision.”
In other words, “the decision-maker has, with this report, in his hands, a very well-founded report that leaves very few doubts because it has all the possible answers”, continued the person in charge.
“He [António Costa] is very satisfied with the result, not only the result we had, but also the result in relation to the objectives set out in the Resolution of the Council of Ministers, which had a methodology agreed with the Social Democratic Party [PSD] and, therefore, he is satisfied that this methodology has produced results that are useful and that allow us to finally make a decision on the new Lisbon airport”, highlighted Maria do Rosário Partidário.
Asked to comment on the statements made by the prime minister-designate, Luís Montenegro, who guaranteed that the decision will be taken “in the first days” of the Government, the official concluded: “I have no reason not to believe it”.
The president of the Monitoring Committee, Carlos Mineiro Aires, praised compliance with the deadlines.
“Regarding the issue of the commission that was created and was announced by Dr. Luís Montenegro, obviously we were not contacted, there is a methodology that the party wants to adopt and that it will do in the best way”, highlighted the president of the Monitoring Commission.
Regarding the fear that the new prime minister will be susceptible to pressure from ANA, Carlos Mineiro Aires said that “I would like to put an end to this issue”, now that they have delivered the final report.
“I’m not interested in feeding” the topic any further, although he admitted that pressure permeability “was a possibility.”
On March 11, the CTI published the final report of the strategic environmental assessment of the new airport, maintaining the recommendation of a single solution in Alcochete or Vendas Novas, but pointed out that Humberto Delgado + Santarém “could be a solution”.
In this solution, the commission refers to Santarém as a “complementary airport to AHD (Humberto Delgado), but with a limited number of movements, not allowing the necessary airport capacity to be met in the long term”, but “it would have the advantage of allowing it to be overcome in the short term conditions created by the concession contract, with the added advantage of private financing”.
The final report is available on the aeroparticipa.pt page.
The PSD decided to set up an internal working group to analyze the location of the new Lisbon airport, after agreeing with the PS to set up a CTI to carry out the strategic environmental assessment.
The social democratic president, Luís Montenegro, guaranteed that the decision will be taken “in the first days” of government.
