The Civic Platform of the BA6-Montijo Airport did not accuse this Saturday the Government and the PSD of wanting to include location solutions for the new airport “on request”, arguing that Alcochete’s option is the “true and strategic one”.
“After creating a certain expectation, with the intention of making believe that the subject was going to be dealt with in depth and rigor, yesterday’s meeting [sexta-feira]September 23, 2022, between the Government and the leader of the PSD, a small set of statements, some unnecessary”, begins by saying the civic platform, which opposes the construction of the new airport in Montijo, in a statement.
The prime minister announced on Friday that there is convergence with the PSD on the methodology for the decision on the new airport, adding that the future technical commission will study several places, in addition to Montijo and Alcochete, including Santarém.
This data was transmitted by António Costa at the end of a meeting of about 55 minutes, in São Bento, with the president of the PSD, Luís Montenegro — meeting in which the Minister of Infrastructure, Pedro Nuno Santos, and the “vice” participated. The social democrat Miguel Pinto Luz.
At a press conference, the Prime Minister said that there was an agreement with the PSD on the methodology to be followed until a “final” decision on the location of the new Lisbon regional airport.
António Costa added that, shortly, the Council of Ministers will approve a resolution for the creation of an independent technical commission and a monitoring commission.
This technical commission, according to the leader of the Executive, will not be limited to studying the solutions of Montijo and Alcochete, also admitting hypotheses such as that of Santarém “and others” that this commission may consider.
In the statement released this Saturday, the BA6-Montijo Não Airport Civic Platform mentions that the participants in this meeting “agreed to include in the Strategic Environmental Assessment (SEA)” a “solution to locate an airport on request.”
“It was learned that, instead of discussing what airport solution Lisbon and the country need, the methodology and times for said SEA were addressed,” criticizes the platform.
The civic movement also accuses the Government and the PSD, in what it calls a “negative coalition”, of leaving the National Civil Engineering Laboratory (LNEC) out of the execution of the studies, considering it a “contempt and devaluation of the institutions public, impartial and independent.
“It is biased, and even insulting, to insinuate that the LNEC would not have sufficient exemption, since it defended “Alcochete”. Nothing could be more false and ignoble. The LNEC did what the Government asked of it: it made a comparison based on a technical, economic, financial and environmental evaluation based on the critical factors for the decision. It was the Government that approved this report, as it was its competence”, they argue.
This platform, which has defended, on several occasions, an airport solution at the Alcochete Shooting Range, in the Setúbal district, assures that the Government fears that “the Portuguese scientific institutions confirm that this would be the “true and strategic” place. . .
“The question of the airport is not, in the first instance, a question of location, but what solution do the country and the region of Lisbon, and the Portuguese around the world, need to defend, protect and improve their unique ‘HUB’. [centro de operações]. Lisbon’s ‘HUB’ and TAP’s ‘HUB’”, underlines the platform.
Source: Observadora
