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Portuguese gov't starts negotiation on TAP sale reversal

Xinhua, December 10, 2015 Adjust font size:

Portuguese Minister of Planning and Infrastructure Pedro Marques said Wednesday the center-left government has started negotiation process on the reversal of the privatization of the country's flagship carrier TAP.

"We have already started the negotiation process that necessarily involves shareholders, but that is under development and I do not want to talk about the details of it at this stage," Marques said on the sidelines of the 9th National Congress of the Public Procurement Electronics held in Lisbon.

He said that the negotiations with the shareholders of Atlantic Gateway owned by U.S.-Brazilian David Neeleman and Portuguese Humberto Pedrosa already started, hoping to materialize with "speed possible for the TAP to have stability and continue to grow."

"We remain steadfast and determined to regain a majority stake to the state," he said.

"TAP is a strategic company for Portugal, the country's economic development and relations with the countries of Lusophone," he said.

However, TAP CEO Fernando Pinto said that any reversal of the privatization will be a difficult process and that half of the money came from the sale has already been spent.

"I do not know how to reverse the privatization. We got 180 million euros (198 million U.S. dollars) and I've spent half," said Pinto at the 41th Congress of the Portuguese Association of Travel Agencies (APAVT) last week in Albufeira, about 230 km south of Lisbon.

Portuguese previous center-right government announced on Nov. 12 that it has approved the sale of a 61-percent stake in TAP, bringing to the end of the long process of privatizing the state-owned company.

The approval of TAP sale came only two days after the center-right minority government collapsed in a parliamentary vote on a motion rejecting government program presented by the then main opposition Socialist Party and its leftist alliance.

The center-left government had vowed to cancel the TAP privatization after they take power following the Oct. 4 general election which saw them in the second place.

The TAP sale was part of an agreement the center-right government made in 2011 when it signed a 78-billion-euro bailout with the European Commission, the International Monetary Fund and the European Central Bank. (1 euro = 1.10 U.S. dollars) Endit