Finance Minister doesn’t rule out nationalization of TAP

Finance Minister Mário Centeno has admitted the nationalization of TAP as a possibility to make the company viable, refusing to rule out options for economic recovery following the Covid-19 pandemic.

“I have heard colleagues of mine, who are thinking of making decisions, that we would not have thought of making a month and a half ago. Therefore, it would not be right or true for me to say […] that any option would be taboo,” Mário Centeno said in an interview with TVI, when asked whether direct or indirect measures, such as the nationalization of companies, would be allowed in the economic recovery plan.

“About TAP, for example, it has unique challenges. There are many ways to act, but this is also one of them,” said Mário Centeno, when faced with a possible nationalization of the airline in which the state is the largest shareholder with 50% of the capital.

Pointing out that the Government will have to “react to something for which there is no script”, the Finance Minister refused not to “take any chance to respond” to the impacts of the new coronavirus on the economy, because he is unaware of what “challenges will arise tomorrow”.

In the same interview, Centeno said today that the government’s estimates point to a 6.5 percent drop in annual GDP for every 30 working days that the economy is paralyzed due to Covid-19.

“The estimates that exist, and we will soon present figures in this regard, are framed in facts ranging from 6.5% of annual GDP for every 30 working days in which the economy is as it is today,” he said.