The EC competition spokesman, Ricardo Cardoso said “the transaction is to be assessed by the proper national authorities”.
Portuguese economic newspaper Diário Económico said that “Brussels declared it was not competent to decide on the sale of TAP as the operation was not European size” and that “the winning consortium had already notified the Portuguese regulator”.
A contract was signed on 24 June to sell 61 percent of the capital of TAP to Gateway (owned by David Neeleman and Humberto Pedrosa), who won the privatisation tender