Luís Montenegro, leader of the PSD, wrote to the Prime Minister this Wednesday requesting the “immediate implementation” of a strategic environmental assessment (SEA) on possible sites of the future airport, which he will complete within a year and with an analysis of costs and deadlines per option.
In the letter, released to the media, Luís Montenegro asks that this SEA be carried out for the options Montijo, Alcochete “and any others that the government or the structure responsible for making the SEA decides to include on a reasoned and technical basis”.
The PSD chairman also asks that this evaluation be delivered “to personalities of recognized technical, academic and scientific merit”, “preferably indicated by independent entities associated with academia” (suggests the inclusion of foreign universities, such as MIT) and “in the fields of economic knowledge and aeronautics and civil engineering”.
READ THE LETTER IN FULL HERE
The PSD also advocates the competence “within or outside the AAE” of a comparative analysis of the costs and implementation times of each of the sites surveyed, including the “related, complementary infrastructures” that are needed.
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”. value (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 of 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. , which will have our acquiescence within the aforementioned goals,” he said.
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”.
In the letter, the PSD leader informs the Prime Minister that the party’s “technical interlocutor” in this matter will be Vice President Miguel Pinto Luz.
However, he assures that the dialogue “has been maintained and will continue at a political level, limited to the Prime Minister on the one hand and the PSD President on the other”, without ever referring in the letter to the Mayor of Lisbon, Carlos Moedas, who has already said not to forego “a seat at the table” in this discussion.
In the letter, Luís Montenegro reiterates the criticism he has publicly expressed to the government in this matter, as the PS and the executive have “had all the democratic and executive tools” for the past seven years to make a final decision. take over the location of the new Lisbon airport.
For the PSD leader, “this deadlock” led to “a chaotic and unprecedented situation” at Portela airport, and regretted that the executive branch did not even take advantage of the two years of the pandemic to start the works in this structure. to feed.
“The situation is all the more revealing about the inability of their governments, as it is known that the XIXth and XX constitutional governments, led by the party I chair, have left you all the conditions to execute,” he said, noting that the attempt to detain the PSD – “by various leaders of the PS and the minister of guardianship” Pedro Nuno Santos – indicates “superficiality, childish arguments and lack of political seriousness”.
He points out, however, that the PSD is “not acting on moods or tantrums”, justifying the willingness it expressed after the July election to “reach the greatest possible agreement on this issue”.
“From the outset, I informed you and the country that the first step would be a mutual acceptance of the methodology to be followed in order to comply with national and European legislation, making it clear that the decision on the method and of the government, even if it, by the voice and will of the prime minister, is striving for broad convergence,” he says.
Luís Montenegro said this unified spirit with António Costa is “mutually guaranteed”, regretting that it was “grossly, incomprehensibly and irresponsibly respected” by the order of the Ministry of Infrastructure, which was later to be revoked by the Prime Minister.
Montenegro explains that it is in this spirit of convergence that it formally transfers to the Prime Minister the outcome of the hearings held by the PSD since July “to all sectors interested and responsible in this process”, including the current concessionaire, air navigation authorities, professional bodies, trade unions or environmental organizations.
In a recent interview with TVI/CNN, António Costa said he is very close to agreeing with the PSD on “the methodology” to be followed for the location of the new Lisbon airport, in order to make a “final decision”. . end 2023
Source: DN
