Lisbon, Sept. 15, 2026 (Lusa) - The Socialist Party (PS) on Tuesday asked the government for all documentation related to the purchase of REN shares, as well as a list of the individuals involved, and announced it would soon table a bill to impose further requirements on the state's acquisition of assets.
Speaking to journalists in parliament, PS MP Marcos Perestrello highlighted that the state is paying «almost double» for REN compared to the sale of its last stake in 2014, noting that «this price includes an unjustified bonus of over €50 million to the shareholder».
«We are living in times when resources are scarce. (…) The government is unable to allocate funds to help people cope with this difficult situation, yet it has found the resources to spend nearly €400 million on acquiring a stake that it had previously sold for almost half the price, whilst also awarding a bonus of over €50 million to the shareholder,» he said.
For this reason, the PS has asked the government to submit «all documentation relating to this process of acquiring REN shares», along with the justification and reasoning behind the decision, which Prime Minister Luís Montenegro announced at the PSD's political ‘rentrée'.
«And it also provides a list of all the individuals involved in this process so that we can ascertain whether it was the government that approached the shareholder to acquire this stake or, on the contrary, whether it was the shareholder who approached the government to sell this stake,» he added.
Marcos Perestrello said the PS would submit a bill to parliament «in the coming weeks» to «tightening the requirements for the acquisition of assets by the State or other public bodies».
«A process of aligning the legal framework for these acquisitions with that of privatisations, increasing obligations, requiring more studies, and enhancing opportunities for scrutiny,» he explained.
The Deputy Speaker of parliament explained that the PS's aim is to make it mandatory to carry out an economic and financial feasibility study, to provide technical and political justification for the acquisitions, and also to ensure «at least two independent valuations regarding the value of the acquisitions in question».
The government has tasked Parpública with acquiring up to 20% of REN's share capital, with the state's purchase of 13.7% from Pontegadea constituting the «first phase» of the operation, according to the documentation consulted by Lusa.
In a joint order from the Ministries of Finance and the Environment and Energy, dated 6 July and forming part of the prior scrutiny process for the operation submitted to the Court of Auditors, the government instructs Parpública to proceed with the «acquisition of shares» in REN – Redes Energéticas Nacionais «corresponding to up to 20% of its share capital».
According to the document, which *Observador*reported, «the aforementioned transaction is to be carried out, in the initial phase, through the direct acquisition from Pontegadea Inversiones of shares representing up to 13.7% of REN's share capital».
The deal with Pontegadea, the investment company owned by Amancio Ortega, founder of Inditex, was finalised last week after the Court of Auditors approved the transaction on 31 August.
JF/ADB // ADB.
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