Infrastructure Minister Pedro Nuno Santos guaranteed Monday that CP’s financial restructuring will be carried out so that the company can rent high-speed trains, saying such an operation will not increase the national debt.
“CP’s financial reorganization is planned” and “it will be done”said the Minister of Infrastructure and Housing, who will be heard on Monday in the Budget and Finance Committee, in the context of the proposal for the National Budget 2023 (OE2023).
Pedro Nuno Santos explained that the increase in the debt of CP – Comboios de Portugal – amounting to 1,860 million euros – is intended to provide the company with conditions to be able to contract the purchase of high-speed trains, stressing that the operation accounting , which does not result in an increase in government debt as it was already consolidated.
What you do, what you need is a “accounting operation that allows CP to take this enormous weight off its balance sheet and give it conditions so that it can rent high-speed trains”as the rules do not allow the purchase to be financed from the state budget or from Community funds.
Pedro Nuno Santos responded to a question from PSD deputy António Topa Gomes, who wanted to know whether the reorganization of the CP was actually planned because the “note” he sees in OE2023 “is not a budget but a budget”.
“I deduce that the minister goes to the oracle of Fernando Medina and says a prayer to see if the money comes”mocked the social-democratic deputy.
The report accompanying the OE proposal states that the CP provides for: “the launch, in 2023, of a tender for the purchase of 12 high-speed trains worth EUR 336 million”detailing that “this investment must be made with the company’s own funds, made possible by the settlement of the company’s historical debt”🇧🇷
In the opening speech of this hearing, Pedro Nuno Santos referred to the proposal for a National Housing Programme, approved last week by the Council of Ministers and to be sent to Parliament, which provides for 22 measures and an investment of EUR 2.377 billion. 2026 for the expansion of the social housing stock.
The first intervention also included data on the Ferrovia2020 programme, whose global value is EUR 2,030 million, with an implementation of EUR 714 million planned for 2023.
Source: DN
