"If we are now going to invest in Portela, knowing that in 10 years we will have another infrastructure a few kilometres away, I think that it would be a waste of an airport that currently exists in Portugal (...) which can still continue to grow and (...) help, while the Alcochete airport is being built", defended, in statements to Lusa, Luís Pedro Martins, president of Tourism of Porto and North of Portugal (TPNP).

At the end of this period, the country "would not only have an excellent airport in Alcochete, but also an excellent airport in the North", added the leader, stressing that the opposite "is a waste of money".

Luís Pedro Martins, who congratulates the decision on the new Lisbon airport, recalls that Francisco Sá Carneiro Airport is one of the most awarded in its segment, winning first place in a universe of 15 million passengers.

On Tuesday, the Government announced the decision to build the new Luís de Camões Airport, in the Alcochete Firing Range, temporarily maintaining Humberto Delgado Airport and increasing its capacity until the new infrastructure is operational.

The person responsible for tourism in the region also defended that this is the time to take advantage of "the opportunity to stop regretting" the desertification that affects many regions of the country and of which the North is an example, namely the inland territories, and to lay the foundations for a project capable of transforming a decades-long reality that occurs in many regions of the country, namely in the North and inland North".

"I belong to a generation that grew up hearing about studies, after studies, after studies that indicated that the country was becoming desertified, but we never had any major project that could change this paradigm. Now we have a major project here that can help to change it: the Porto-Madrid high-speed connection, crossing the Northeast Transmontano", he declared.

For the president of TPNP, not going ahead with this investment "is to assume, once and for all, that there is a territory where we do not want people".

"If we want to continue to believe that it is still possible to develop these parts of the territory, then we have to provide them with infrastructures that can make this happen. Connecting to Madrid, at 02:45 from Porto, passing through these territories, could make a difference", he reiterated.

The Vale d'Ouro Association, based in Pinhão, municipality of Alijó, district of Vila Real, participated in the public consultation for the National Railway Plan, submitting a study for a new high-speed line between Porto--Vila Real--Bragança-Zamora, a proposal that provides for the connection to the Madrid-Galiza high-speed line about 40 kilometres from the border.

However, in December, it became known that this transmontane line was not included in the trans-European transport network (TEN-T).

Last week, the association announced that it had asked the new Government for clarifications on the Trás-os-Montes high-speed railway line, after the European Union, in response to questions raised by Vale d'Ouro, classified this project as being of "common interest" for Portugal and Spain.

On Tuesday, the Government committed to completing the studies on the Lisbon-Madrid high-speed railway line, so that the works on the Portuguese side are completed at the same time as Spain, which points to 2034.

At the time, the Minister for Infrastructure and Housing, Miguel Pinto Luz, considered it legitimate that territories outside metropolitan areas demand, in some way, mechanisms that guarantee that the level of public investment is more or less the same throughout the country", but stressed that this "does not mean that airports or railway lines will be built inland or everywhere".

"It means that there has to be a rationality of investments that guarantees that the territories all have the same opportunity to develop. In the specific case of Trás-os-Montes, these investments are very clear: it is the Trás-os-Montes line with a connection in Zamora and it is the Douro line, on a more local level, and its reopening to Salamanca", he also defended.

Leia Também: Novo aeroporto? "Uma epopeia que se arrastava há tempo demais" (Portuguese version)