Completion of TAP privatization will only have an impact in Portugal in 2028

The Portuguese government expects that the sale of a 49.9% share in TAP will not have any effect on reducing public debt until 2028, due to the long regulatory approval process with the European Union authorities.

By Íris Marçal, in News, Tourism, Travel, Business · 10 Oct 2026, 10:03 · 1 Comments

Fernando Medina, who is the Finance Minister, gave this estimate when he was presenting the proposal for the 2027 State Budget and pointed out that the European Commission's competition department might take between 18 and 24 months to finish its review after having chosen a buyer.

The Ministry of Finance states that the government will decide on the winning bid this month, after which there will be a final negotiation stage, the approval of the contractual documents, and then the submission of the dossier to Brussels.

Budget balance

The amount obtained from the transaction will be used directly to reduce the public debt rather than affecting the budget balance, as is provided for in the Framework Law on Reprivatizations, which sets the priority on employing the proceeds from divestment to pay down the State's financial liabilities.

The 49.9 per cent of the company involved in the final sale—5 per cent of that share being set aside preferentially for employees—was the subject of the government's current evaluation of the enhanced final proposals submitted by the Air France-KLM and Lufthansa groups on 30 September.

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A poor article that fails to provide any insight. Some figures of the amounts involved would have been helpful to understand that the stake sale will have almost no impact at all on net public debt. The latter stands at around €275 billion, while the 49.9% stake in TAP is valued at barely more than €1 billion. So the sale is peanuts compared to a mountain of debt.

By Billy Bissett from Porto on 11 Oct 2026, 21:10