In the debate on this PCP proposal in parliament, PSD deputy Gonçalo Lage said that, when he heard that the communists were going to suggest the creation of an inquiry committee, he thought it would be about the nationalisation of EFACEC, in which "300 million euros of taxpayers' money disappeared without anyone really understanding what, or how".

"Strange world this, where some of us prefer to prioritise cases where the State creates value for taxpayers instead of cases where the State destroys taxpayers' value", he said, claiming that the country benefited from the sale of ANA in 2013, carried out by a PSD/CDS Government, led by Passos Coelho.

"We have 94% more passengers and 53% more movements than when ANA was public. We have more workers - we are at 3,400 workers - and we have a higher remuneration per worker: about 9% more than what was paid when ANA was public", he said.

CDS parliamentary leader Paulo Núncio also criticised the PCP's proposal, accusing the party of wanting to discuss "a privatisation with 10 years by ideological choice" and of wanting to "renationalise everything that moves".

In turn, PS deputy Hugo Costa stressed that the party has always criticised the privatisation of ANA and stressed that the Court of Auditors' report on the deal, released in January, "is devastating in concluding that the privatisation did not serve the public interest".

However, the socialist defended that the issue should be "debated and framed in a more comprehensive way", saying he was available to approve and hold all hearings on the subject within the parliamentary Committee on Economy.

"The creation of a parliamentary inquiry committee on these terms would not allow for a comprehensive follow-up of the issue, since the object will naturally be closed, not safeguarding present and future debates on the national airport network, and its creation would be untimely", he said.

For Chega, deputy Filipe Melo said that, in principle, his party will not obstruct the PCP's proposal, as it is in favour of scrutiny. However, he accused the communists of putting forward the initiative to "show that they are still alive" and of wanting to renationalise "everything that moves".

IL deputy Carlos Guimarães Pinto also said that his party would not vote against the proposal, as it advocates transparency, but considered that the suspicions underlying the initiative "are contaminated by the PCP's ideological bias".

On the contrary, BE deputy Isabel Pires considered that, with the Court of Auditors' report, it became "absolutely clear that the privatisation of ANA only took into account the interests of private individuals", stressing that the party will vote in favour of the communist proposal because it cannot be limited to "vain indignation".

Livre deputy Jorge Pinto compared the PCP's proposal with Chega's proposal for a parliamentary inquiry into the case of the Portuguese-Brazilian twins, considering that the case under debate today is "paralysing the country" and "postponing the decision on the construction of the new airport", announcing the party's vote in favour.

At the end of the debate, PCP deputy António Filipe considered it "somewhat surprising" that there is a "convergence of votes between the PS and the PSD to prevent the creation of an inquiry committee".

"When we all make speeches against corruption, for transparency and then, faced with facts like these, you deputies think that the Assembly of the Republic, instead of investigating responsibilities, should whistle in the air and think that everything is fine and that the privatisation of ANA was a very good thing for the country... It is not: it is deeply harmful", he defended.

Read Also: Parliament debates today inquiry committee on ANA privatisation (Portuguese version)