The President of the Republic, Marcelo Rebelo de Sousa, said this Friday that he hopes that the construction of the new Lisbon airport will not be delayed due to “lack of sustainability in the vision” of political leaders.
I am pleased that it is possible, apparently and finally, to be able to know when a structural investment is advancing, and it is advancing consensually, that it is an airport investment promised for I don’t know how many years and that it is expected that it will not take decades or eternities to materialize due to lack of sustainability at the view of policy makers”, said the Head of State, in a speech at the closing of the 7th Congress of Public Accountants, in Lisbon.
During his speech, the President of the Republic once again urged the Government to present the macroeconomic scenarios for the near future, since “measures are anticipated” they must also do so with forecasts.
The Prime Minister, António Costa, and the President of the PSD, Luís Montenegro, meet this Friday afternoon to discuss the methodology on the future airport solution for the Lisbon region, in a meeting scheduled for 5:00 p.m. in São Bento.
Unlike the only public meeting between António Costa and Luís Montenegro, which took place in two on July 22, this time the meeting will be extended to the Minister of Infrastructure, Pedro Nuno Santos, and the Social Democratic Vice President Miguel Pinto Luz, “the technical interlocutor ” of the PSD on the airport issue.
On Wednesday, Luís Montenegro published a letter sent to the Prime Minister, in which reports the conclusion of the process of hearings and internal reflection that the PSD had been carrying out since July on the subject and transmitted the five conditions of the part to agree on the methodology to be followed in the future airport of the Lisbon region.
The “immediate execution” of a Strategic Environmental Assessment (SEA), carried out within a year, for the Montijo, Alcochete options “and any other that the Government or the structure in charge of carrying out the SEA decides, reasoned and technically, to include ” is one of the premises raised by Montenegro.
Then, the president of the PSD requests that this evaluation be delivered “to personalities of recognized technical, academic and scientific merit” and that it be accompanied by a comparative analysis of costs and execution times of each of the locations under study, including the ” necessary “related, complementary” infrastructures.
Regarding the letter from Luís Montenegro, “in terms of what is essential”, António Costa emphasizes that he recorded the reaffirmation of the “full availability to achieve the greatest possible convergence” on “the airport capacity development strategy in the Lisbon region” and, in particular, “mutual acceptance of the methodology to be followed”.
On June 29, the Ministry of Infrastructure published an order in which it declared that the Government had decided to proceed with a new airport solution for Lisbon, which meant moving forward with Montijo to be operational by the end of 2026 and Alcochete and, being this the last one was operational, near the Humberto Delgado Airport.
However, the following day, the order was revoked by order of the President of the Government, António Costa, which led Pedro Nuno Santos to publicly assume “communication errors” with the Government in the decisions involving the future airport in the region. from Lisbon.
In a recent interview with TVI/CNN, António Costa said that he was very close to reaching an understanding with the PSD on “the methodology” to follow for the location of the new Lisbon airport, in order to make a “definitive decision”. . at the end of the year 2023
The head of state had appealed this Wednesday to the Executive to advance as soon as possible with the macroeconomic forecasts, alleging that the Portuguese have to “know the threads with which they sew” in the near future, with the increase in inflation and the decrease in power purchasing.
Source: Observadora
