Government to approve terms of TAP privatisation by July

Portugal’s government aims to approve by July the statute that will start the process of privatising TAP, the national flag carrier, followed by the approval of a resolution in cabinet that is to define its terms and specifications.

The timetable was announced by the minister of finance, Fernando Medina, during a cabinet meeting where it was decided that the Ministry of Finance and Parpública, the main state investment holding company, would be mandated to carry out two independent assessments of the airline’s value.

With the minister for infrastructure, João Galamba at his side, the minister of finance stressed that this step “is mandatory and prior” to the approval by the government, via decree-law, of the range of matters relating to the criteria of the privatisation process.

In other words, questions about the percentage of TAP shares that are to be privatised or whether any minimum financial revenue to be received by the state as part of the privatisation process “can only be decided by the government after independent evaluations of the value of the airline are completed,” according to Medina,

“In this framework, we will do everything in strict compliance with the steps determined by law, not anticipating what the law determines should not be anticipated,” he said. “These questions will be answered in the decree-law and then in the Cabinet resolution of the Council of Ministers that will follow shortly afterwards, where the general terms of the privatisation and the specifications of the privatisation will be fixed.”