Lisbon, Nov. 6, 2025 (Lusa) - The Portuguese Communist Party (PCP) accused the government on Thursday of withholding relevant information about TAP from parliament and of conducting an opaque privatisation process for the national airline that is contrary to the public interest.
These criticisms were made by the PCP bench leader, Paula Santos, at a press conference after the government announced that it would not hand over to parliament the evaluations of TAP carried out between 2023 and 2025, or other documents it classified as "sensitive".
Following a request from the PCP, the Ministry of Finance claimed that the requested reports contain sensitive information whose disclosure could compromise the state's negotiating position in the reprivatisation process.
For Paula Santos, "the government takes refuge in arguments about strategic details regarding the company in order not to make these studies available, but the truth is that these arguments don't hold water because this is the parliament," a sovereign body.
"The MPs were elected directly by the people. And if there is any element of confidentiality, parliament also respects those details," she said.
For the leader of the Communist benches, "the government is showing opacity and a lack of transparency in the TAP privatisation process, preventing MPs from scrutinising and supervising the government", namely in relation to monitoring the TAP reprivatisation process.
"It seems that the PSD/CDS government wants to adopt a procedure identical to the one it followed, with the same parties, in 2015, of total opacity and lack of transparency, but at the same time not defending the public interest and the interest of the country," she added.
Asked if the disclosure of this information, requested by the PCP, could harm the state's financial contribution to the TAP privatisation process, Paula Santos rejected this argument.
"What is damaging the company is this privatisation process, which we have been demanding be cancelled. This argument that it would harm the company doesn't hold water, because parliament is a sovereign body, our people directly elect the MPs and, if any documents are confidential, naturally the deputies will also keep them confidential," she said.
According to the bench leader of the PCP, a sovereign body cannot be prevented, as the government is doing, from having access to documentation that is important in the context of its work of monitoring and overseeing the government's activities".
Paula Santos once again pointed out that in 2015, the PSD/CDS government also went ahead with the privatisation of TAP "in haste and hidden from everyone - and that is what was damaging to the company".
"It's essential to stop this privatisation process, to strengthen the public management of TAP in the interests of our country, with a view to developing the company itself. TAP is absolutely strategic, not only in terms of connections, passengers and goods, but also because of its capacity to be strengthened, for example, in the area of maintenance and engineering," she added.
PMF/ADB // ADB.
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