The coordinator of the Independent Technical Commission (CTI) said today that the report on the new airport “has a very solid basis” for a decision and the chairman of the Monitoring Commission said he had not been contacted by the PSD.
The two officials were speaking to journalists at the end of their meeting with Prime Minister António Costa in São Bento, where they delivered the final report on the strategic options for increasing airport capacity in the Lisbon region.
Asked what she had heard from António Costa after the report was presented, Maria do Rosário Partidário, from the Independent Technical Commission (CTI), said: “One of the things we heard, and which you’ve probably all heard, is that he’s very sorry he’s not the decision-maker because he has a very solid basis for making the decision.”
In other words, “with this report, the decision-maker has in his hands a very well-founded report that leaves very few doubts because it has all the possible answers,” she continued.
“He [António Costa] is very pleased with the result, not only the result we have had, but also the result in relation to the objectives set out in the Council of Ministers Resolution, which had a methodology agreed with the Social Democratic Party [PSD] and, therefore, he is pleased that this methodology has had results that are useful and that finally allow a decision to be taken on the new Lisbon airport,” stressed Maria do Rosário Partidário.
Asked to comment on the statements made by the Prime Minister-designate, Luís Montenegro, who guaranteed that the decision would be taken “in the first few days” of the government, she concluded: “I have no reason not to believe it.”
The chairman of the Monitoring Committee, Carlos Mineiro Aires, praised the compliance with the deadlines.
“Regarding the issue of the commission that was created and announced by 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,” stressed the chairman of the Monitoring Commission.
Regarding the fear that the new prime minister will be permeable to pressure from ANA, Carlos Mineiro Aires said that he “would like to put an end to this issue”, now that they have delivered the final report.
“I’m not interested in feeding into it”, 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 pointing out that Humberto Delgado + Santarém “could be a solution”.
In this solution, the commission refers to Santarém as “a complementary airport to the 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 the constraints created by the concession contract to be overcome in the short term, and would also have the advantage of private financing”.
The final report is available on aeroparticipa.pt.
The PSD has decided to set up an internal working group to analyze the location of the new Lisbon airport, after having agreed with the PS to set up a CTI to carry out the strategic environmental assessment.
The Social Democrat president, Luís Montenegro, has guaranteed that the decision will be taken “in the first few days” of government.
