The privatisation was approved by the right-of-centre coalition government that was in power until last autumn, with the minority Socialist government that took office in November last year seeking - and reaching - an agreement with the consortium to limit the share sale to 45%, possibly rising to 50% depending on how many of the 5% of shares earmarked for TAP employees are taken up by them. ANAC has yet to consider this later deal, which was set in motion in February.

In a statement, ANAC announced that its board had ruled that the shareholder structure for TAP and its Portugália unit resulting from the purchase of 61% of the shares by Atlantic Gateway SGPS is in line with European Union regulations, which require that companies holding EU air transport licences are effectively majority held by member states or citizens of member states.

In other words, the regulator took the view that Pedrosa would indeed control the majority of TAP's shares and that he had effective control of the consortium.

That is despite the fact that Neeleman - who is not a citizen of an EU member state - has appeared to take a much more high-profile role over the past year, leading some commentators to speculate that Pedrosa was being used as a front.

The European Commission had already said that it was up to the Portuguese regulator to rule on whether the privatisation was in line with EU rules.

In a statement, Portugal's government noted that the ANAC decision was "administration and interim", given later developments once it had itself taken power.