Lisbon, Oct. 22, 2025 (Lusa) - MPs on the Portuguese Parliamentary Commission for Infrastructure, Mobility and Housing on Wednesday approved requests to hear from Infraestruturas de Portugal (IP) and Minister Miguel Pinto Luz on the route of the high-speed railway line in Gaia, according to a parliamentary source.

According to a source from that parliamentary commission, the PSD's request to hear the country's road and rail infrastructure manager, IP Infraestruturas de Portugal, S.A., on the Porto-Lisbon High-Speed railway line (Porto/Oiã section) and the PS's request to "hear the Minister of Infrastructure to clarify the change in the location of Gaia Station on the Porto-Lisbon high-speed line" were unanimously approved today.

At issue is an alternative proposal for the Gaia high-speed line station, whose concession contract signed by the companies says its location will be in Santo Ovídio, but the AVAN Norte consortium (Mota-Engil, Teixeira Duarte, Alves Ribeiro, Casais, Conduril and Gabriel Couto) wants to build it outside the planned location, in Vilar do Paraíso, in an area of National Ecological Reserve and National Agricultural Reserve.

Last week, the spokesperson for the Association of Companies in the São Caetano Industrial Park in Gaia told Lusa that the high-speed line project "is riddled with opacity," urging the government to "assume its responsibilities" and agreeing, in a parliamentary hearing, that "blackmail" was involved.

The industrial park association believes that changing the location of the station, with more of the route above ground, will require changes to the route and expropriations not initially planned in the São Caetano industrial zone.

The Environmental Compliance Report for the Porto - Oiã section of the high-speed line (RECAPE) was made available for public consultation last week on the participa.pt portal, where it will remain until 11 November.

The number of demolitions planned in the high-speed line project between Porto and Oiã is 236, of which 185 are homes and 45 are businesses, according to RECAPE.

IP is conducting a "technical and legal analysis" of the consortium's proposal for the Gaia high-speed station, confirming that it has received elements outside of what was submitted in the public tender.

The European Investment Bank (EIB) told Lusa in September that it had financed the high-speed line based on the proposal that complies with the specifications of the public tender, that the proposal initially submitted by the consortium "reflects the depth and specifications approved during the public tender process and set out in the project's Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA)", and that "any material change to the project would require a formal review by the lenders and relevant authorities".

The Porto-Oiã section of the high-speed line received €875 million in financing from the EIB, with the total cost of the section being €1.661 billion.

The location of the Gaia high-speed station in Santo Ovídio, with connections to the two metro lines (Yellow and Ruby), and the solution of a road-rail bridge over the Douro River have been planned since September 2022, when the high-speed line project was first presented.

Minister Miguel Pinto Luz said on 11 October that "as of that day, for the State, the station will be in the location that was planned", but recalled that the specifications allowed for "optimising solutions", after considering it "important to clarify" the issue in legal terms in September.

In April, the government assured that "any possible changes will have to be fully safeguarded from a legal point of view, be in full accordance with the requirements of the specifications and ensure the agreement of the local authorities".

The first phase (Porto-Soure) of the high-speed line in Portugal should be ready in 2030, with the second phase (Soure-Carregado) scheduled for completion in 2032, with a connection to Lisbon via the existing (Porto-Lisbon) main Northern Line.

The connection between Porto and Vigo, in Galicia (Spain), scheduled for 2032, will have stations at Francisco Sá Carneiro Airport, Braga, Ponte de Lima and Valença (region of Viana do Castelo).

In total, according to the previous government, the investment costs for the Lisbon-Valença axis are around seven to eight billion euros.

JE/AYLS // AYLS

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