The Minister of Infrastructure said this Friday that it is not the leader of the PSD, Luís Montenegro, who gives him political authority and accused the Social Democratic leader of being “disrespectful and offensive” towards political opponents.
“It is not the leader of the PSD who gives me political authority or not. The President of the Government gives me political authority”, said Pedro Nuno Santos, before the declarations of Luís Montenegro, who on Thursday had said that he did not recognize the Minister of Infrastructures political authority to intervene in the dialogue on the new airport.
Airport: Pedro Nuno Santos blames the PSD for the delay in Lisbon infrastructure
“I, first of all, regret the disrespectful and offensive style towards political opponents that characterizes the leader of the PSD. And he is not new, he is nothing new to us. Usually when you have no substance, the opponent is offended. If one day the leader of the PSD manages to form a government, then yes, he will be able to give and take away political authority from his ministers. Until then, you have to deal with the ministers of the Republic, of your country”, he added.
The controversy, as Pedro Nuno Santos recalled, began when the leader of the PSD publicly questioned the due to start of works at Humberto Delgado airport.
“I, as Minister of Infrastructure, what I did, because I had not understood exactly what the leader of the PSD was asking for, came back with three questions”, said.
Pedro Nuno Santos assured that he only wanted to know if Luís Montenegro was referring to the expansion works of the Humberto Delgado airport, works to which the concessionaire [ANA/Vinci] is contractually bound, or whether it involved other works, and whether the issues should be directed to the Government or the concessionaire.
The Infrastructure Minister also reaffirmed that the leftist parties, BE and PCP, have not changed their position on the new airport, but that the PSD seems to want to get out of the picture in the project it designed for the new Lisbon airport.
“The opposition of the PCP and the Left Bloc to the solution that the Government of Pedro Passos Coelho had designed was known, it was nothing new and, therefore, everyone knew that they would never facilitate a process that would materialize an airport solution with which they did not They agreed,” he said.
“The novelty was not the PCP and the Bloco. What was new was that the PSD made a set of demands that delayed, or would delay, the implementation of an infrastructure or solution that it had chosen. And that’s why I said, and I repeat, that the PSD cannot be excluded from a photograph of which it is a part“, concluded Pedro Nuno Santos.
Source: Observadora
