The PCP wants to know whether after the revelation in the Commission of Inquiry of “an illegal and unfair scheme involving Airbus in the privatization of TAP in 2015 and the purchase of six billion euros worth of aircraft by TAP from Airbus”, the European Union Commission will open an investigation.
MEP João Pimenta Lopes specifically questions what “measures the European Commission will develop in view of the call of the Portuguese Parliament and the Portuguese Government” because the Parliamentary Commission of Inquiry concluded that “the Portuguese Government, “in the context of its bilateral relations and its participation in European Union structures, take action to launch an investigation into Airbus’s role in TAP’s privatization process in 2015″.
During the parliamentary committee of inquiry, former infrastructure minister Pedro Nuno Santos said it was “possible” that the country was misled with the Airbus aircraft deal for TAP, and that if confirmed, it is necessary to demand the review. of contracts.
The former minister underlined that it is now known that the capitalization carried out in the framework of the privatization by the PSD/CDS government in 2015 was made with money from Airbus and that there is an implicit value in the exchange of aircraft . orders (of twelve A350s already under contract for 53 new aircraft) of US$440 million.
According to the minister, who was in office when the government sent the audit requested by TAP to the MP and which led to the opening of an investigation, “Today this helps to better understand why an aircraft supplier lends or gives money to the buyer of the company. million euros”, which were used to capitalize the airline.
The CDS, in turn, will request the intervention of the European Commission and the President of the Republic after the “announcement” that Diogo Lacerda Machado, the “close friend of the Prime Minister”, will be one of the “leaders of an international consortium that competes with the privatization of TAP”. The situation, Nuno Melo argues, may “provide a serious case of political and ethical contours” and “deserves a head-on and clear criticism of the CDS”.
“Lacerda Machado was mandated by Dr. António Costa to reverse the privatization of TAP and was later appointed to the board of directors by the socialist government. The presence now at the head of a consortium announcing that it will fight for future privatization rightly raises a question of independence policy,” says Nuno Melo.
Because they are “deeply concerned that the privatization process is starting this way,” says the MEP, “the Portuguese today know that TAP was treated as a PS coutada, with ministers and state secretaries interfering in its management and publicly opposed each other through his political and personal control”.
The leader of the CDS says it is not “acceptable that at the head of a consortium fighting for the re-privatization of TAP, the same private friend of the Prime Minister is in his portfolio, carrying all privileged information and obvious conflicts of interest.” collected in recent years. years”.
“Everything happens and it can only happen because the prime minister wants it that way,” he concludes.
CDS says the choice of “Costa’s friend” to lead a consortium fighting to privatize TAP “calls into question the credibility of the democratic regime”.
Source: DN
