Lisbon, July 10, 2025 (Lusa) - Portugal's government on Thursday approved the decree-law that initiates the process of reprivatising TAP, in which it intends to sell, in the first phase, 49.9% of the airline’s capital, the prime minister announced.
Luís Montenegro made a statement to journalists at the official residence in São Bento, in the middle of the cabinet meeting, offering a statement only.
“We have approved a decree-law in which we fulfil a point in our electoral and government programme, which is the reprivatisation of 49.9% of TAP’s share capital,” Montenegro stressed, saying that this was the “kick-off” for this first phase of reprivatisation.
The prime minister referred further details on this decree-law, which the government will “develop in due course with the presentation of the specifications”, to a press conference by the ministers of finance and infrastructure today at 5 p.m., and clarified the political objective.
Montenegro said that this reprivatisation aims to safeguard the “most strategic” routes for Portugal and “the strategic interest of the country”, but also to “make the national airline’s operation sustainable”.
“We have already spent a lot of money, and we intend to ensure every euro benefits the lives of the Portuguese people. Rather than invest in a bottomless pit, we want the company to be profitable, well managed, competitive, financially sustainable and serving the strategic interests of the country,” he said.
Montenegro explained that the decision “includes opening up the company’s capital to one or more investors for up to 44.9% of the company’s capital and 5% to employees”.
“This is an objective that we want to ensure that our airline safeguards the hub in Lisbon, safeguards the use of all the country’s airport infrastructure, in particular Lisbon airport today and the new Luís de Camões airport tomorrow (near Lisbon), but also Porto and Faro and the airports in the autonomous regions,” he said.
“We have to take advantage of the investments we are making in all airports, in our entire road network, in our entire rail network so that people can move around, but also so that our companies can be more competitive, so that our tourism can achieve even better results,” he said.
In this process, the government intends to sell up to 49.9% of the airline’s capital through a direct sale model, reserving up to 5% for employees, as stipulated by the privatisation law.
This is the first step towards the sale of TAP, which will once again have private shareholders after the government moved to nationalise it in 2020 due to the impact of the pandemic on air transport.
The president of Portugal must also approve the decree-law. In October 2023, the President vetoed the document that António Costa’s government had drawn up to initiate the privatisation of TAP. At the time, Marcelo Rebelo de Sousa decided to return the bill, approved by the cabinet on 28 September of that year, because it “requested further clarification and input to ensure the desired maximum transparency of the process”.
Interruptions due to the fall of the last two PS and PSD governments paused the reprivatisation of the airline, which has been on the table since 2023.
Originally state-owned, TAP underwent partial privatisation in 2015. However, the António Costa government reversed the process in 2016, taking back 50% of the company.
Last year, Luís Montenegro’s government revisited the issue and expressed its intention to proceed with the sale of a minority stake in 2025. Since then, the government has been negotiating with major European groups, including Air France-KLM, Lufthansa, and IAG.
SMA/ADB // ADB.
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