BE criticizes the reprivatization of TAP "on its knees" and without justification or criteria

At the close of the BE Parliamentary Days, which ended today in Aveiro, Pedro Filipe Soares was asked about recent developments in relation to TAP, after Finance Minister Fernando Medina revealed that the process privatization of the airline TAP will "soon" be in the Council of Ministers.

"This reprivatization decision seems to be taken on our knees, without any justification, without any criteria, against everything that has been defended by the government and with a single objective, which is a company that was saved with public money, which now it is starting to make a profit, handing over to individuals for individuals to benefit,” he criticized.

According to the BE parliamentary leader, this is a situation similar to what happened in the banking sector, when taxpayers' money was used "to clean up private holes and then returned to private take advantage of it”.

“We see it now with TAP, with the destruction of this strategic vector of the company and again with the delivery to individuals after public money has been used to safeguard the company's destinations. It is unacceptable and inconceivable, ”he denounced.

In the analysis of Pedro Filipe Soares, there are two subjects that "apparently the PS wants to manage in parallel or in an articulated way" with the commission of inquiry into the airline and that the blockers, promoters of this investigation, want " fully dissociate.

“On the one hand, the General Inspectorate of Finance and the investigation it is conducting have nothing to do with the commission of inquiry. (…) Another affair which does not concern us either, but which we perceive that the PS wants to relate, is the privatization of TAP”, he declared.

The blogger repeated the criticism of this privatization, recalling that the Prime Minister, António Costa, had declared that it was “a strategic undertaking”.

“He said it in 2016, 2017, when he carried out the process of partial nationalization of the company, he reaffirmed it when in 2020, he carried out the process of total nationalization of the company. 'business. It is incomprehensible to us that in just over two years opinion has changed so drastically because we continue to view TAP as strategic in what it means for the national economy and what it means for the access to the country,” he added.

Pedro Filipe Soares assured that the party will fight against the privatization of the company, but reiterated that the commission of inquiry is not the instrument to do so.

"The commission of inquiry is neither dependent on the audit of the General Inspectorate of Finance, nor dependent on such market consultation as the Government wants to do and we will not accept the challenge of the current Minister of Infrastructure not to ask the questions that we deem necessary to face a privatization that harms the interests of the State and that we will fight,” he summarized.

JF // JPS