Lisbon, July 11, 2025 (Lusa) - The infrastructure minister said on Friday that the government will maintain control of TAP, reiterating that it wants a partner that will guarantee the country’s strategic interests.
Miguel Pinto Luz was speaking in an urgent debate in parliament requested by Chega, after the government approved, on Thursday, the decree-law that marks the beginning of the privatisation process of TAP, providing for the opening of up to 49.9% of the airline’s share capital to private investors, of which 5% is reserved for workers.
"We will sell TAP only at a fair price, we have already said so, and we stand by what we said," assured the minister, adding that the government "has made it clear that it will sell the company only if it believes that sufficient conditions are in place" to guarantee, among other things, that the company remains Portuguese.
In response to requests for clarification from MPs, the Minister of Infrastructure considered that “TAP will only survive if it becomes private”, with the government unable to inject a single euro into the company and without the company being able to buy aircraft, making it necessary to find “a strategic partner for these synergies”.
At the beginning of his speech, Miguel Pinto Luz recalled that the government still must publish and review the decree-law approved on Thursday, and that it must then publish the specifications for the sale, so he considered today’s discussion “somewhat premature”.
Chega questioned the government about possible partners in the Middle East, with the minister saying that the sale of 49.9% of TAP “also allows us to go to the Middle East”. “The decree-law allows us to go outside Europe, opens up the market, opens up opportunities,” said Pinto Luz.
In response to the Liberal Initiative, which advocates the total privatisation of the Portuguese airline, the minister said that if the members of that party “knew how markets work, they would understand that the sale of a minority stake will maximise the value of the remaining stake”.
The cabinet's approval of the decree-law was 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 government has kept the reprivatisation of the airline on the table since 2023, and it paused the plan when the last two PS and PSD governments fell.
Originally state-owned, TAP was partially privatised in 2015, but the government of António Costa reversed the process in 2016 and took 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 such as Air France-KLM, Lufthansa and IAG.
MPE/ADB // ADB.
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