The agreement to start work at the Montijo air base today was signed between Portugal’s airports concession holder and the Government.
The Montijo conversion should be completed by the end of 2022 but the contract covers work to 2028. The €1.15 billion cost will be borne by Aeroportos de Portugal (ANA), controlled by the French infrastructure group Vinci.
The financing agreement and changes to the current infrastructure at Lisbon’s Humberto Delgado airport was signed despite the absence of an environmental impact study covering the new airport’s effects on local bird life in the Tagus Estuary Nature Reserve.
During the first year of operation, seven million passengers are expected to use Montijo, reducing the pressure on Lisbon airport which reached capacity in the summer of 2017.
Today’s ceremony was attended by Prime Minister, António Costa, the Minister of Planning and Infrastructure, Pedro Marques, the head of Vinci, Xavier Huillard, and the president of Vinci Airports, Nicolas Notebaert.
The agreement does not please the ‘Plataforma Cívica Aeroporto BA6 Não’ pressure group that has been against Montijo airport’s conversion, not does it sit well with the environmental organisation, Zero, which is formulating a complaint to Brussels.
The binding agreement between ANA and the state initially was scheduled to be signed off last October, according to the memorandum of understanding, which indicated the end of 2018 for ANA to deliver a second, more professional, environmental impact study to the Portuguese Environmental Agency.
The Green Party has scheduled a debate in parliament on Thursday to discuss the government's decision to sign the deal without the environmental study.
Left Bloc leader, Catarina Martins, expressed "enormous perplexity" at the fact that the agreement was to be signed for the new airport without the necessary environmental impact study.
The Secretary General of Portugal Communist Party, Jerónimo de Sousa, accused the Government of pandering to big business and avoiding its environmental responsibilities.
The pro-Montijo Social Democrat Party said it will call the Minister of Defence and the head of the Portuguese Air Force to parliament to provide clarification and have spoken of, "three lost years" – the period of delay for the completion of a competent environmental study – suggesting that the only reason the deal was rushed through today was the impending autumn general election.
"We are facing three lost years, what we have on the table today as a solution is no different from what we had in 2015," said PSD deputy chairman, Emídio Guerreiro who also asked for an explanation of the consequences of a possible negative environmental impact study and how this would affect today’s contract.
Prime Minister, António Costa said yesterday that the decision to expand Lisbon airport’s capacity, by converting Montijo, is a decision that is 50 years late.
"Even after this agreement, the debate will continue, but the decision is this and it must be put into practice," said António Costa at the signing ceremony, leaving no doubt in the minds of environmentalists that whatever the consequences to local wildlife and passenger safety, the airport will be built.
The PM said that work can start at Lisbon Airport while the government waits for the environmental impact study that concerns only Montijo,
"It is clear that we are subject to something that no one can call into question, which is the environmental impact and the guarantee of aviation safety. Once this assumption is verified, the work has to move forward and that is why it can advance already in the place where it can advance, Humberto Delgado Airport, as there we are not subject to any environmental impact study and therefore the work there can start now," explained the prime minister.