The Prime Minister announced a meeting with the PSD chairman on Friday, in São Bento, in the presence of the Minister of Infrastructure, after registering the “total availability” of Luís Montenegro for convergence at the new airport.
This position of António Costa comes after the PSD leader wrote to him requesting the “immediate realization” of a Strategic Environmental Assessment (SEA) on possible sites for the future airport, which he aims to complete within a year and with an analysis of costs. and deadlines for each option.
“The Prime Minister was made aware of the letter sent to him by Dr. Luís Montenegro on behalf of the PPD/PSD,” the note released by the executive branch’s office reads.
Regarding Luís Montenegro’s letter, “in terms of essence”, António Costa points out that he has registered the reconfirmation of “total availability to achieve the greatest possible convergence” on “the strategy for developing airport capacity in the region of Lisbon” and, in particular, “the mutual acceptance of the method to be followed”.
Then António Costa refers to Friday’s meeting, mentioning the presence of the Minister of Infrastructure and Housing, Pedro Nuno Santos.
“To give a useful order to this availability, the Prime Minister and the Minister of Infrastructure and Housing will have a working meeting with a delegation from the PPD/PSD led by its chairman, Dr. Luís Montenegro”adds the Prime Minister’s Office.
In the letter of the PSD president addressed to António Costa, released to the media, Luís Montenegro asks that this AAE be carried out for the Montijo, Alcochete options “and all others that the government or the structure responsible for the making the AAE decide, based on and technically, to include”.
The PSD chairman also demands that this evaluation be delivered “to personalities of recognized technical, academic and scientific merit”, “preferably indicated by independent entities affiliated with academia” (suggests the inclusion of foreign universities, such as MIT) and “in the field of economic knowledge and aviation and civil engineering”.
The PSD also calls for autonomy “inside or outside the SEA” from a comparative analysis of the costs and implementation times of each of the sites surveyed, including the required “related, complementary infrastructures”.
In the conclusions communicated to António Costa, the Social Democratic leader also reiterates the need to immediately start the requalification work of Humberto Delgado airport and to identify both the airports serving the north and the Algarve “as well as Cascais airport”. (in the field of business and light air traffic in the Lisbon region).
In the letter, Montenegro explains that the PSD has completed a wide range of hearings on the future airport, which it has been holding since July, leading to the conclusions it has now provided to the government.
“After the presentation of the summary of the conclusions (…) and the hard work of internal reflection, it is now up to the government – which also has an absolute majority in parliament – to decide on the methodological path to be followed, they will have our acquiescence within the above-mentioned beacons”said Montenegro.
Luís Montenegro also reiterated his availability for a dialogue on this issue with the government and asked António Costa to “make public the government’s decision quickly”.
Source: DN
