In a statement, eight associations stress that the mandate given to the Institute for Mobility and Transport will continue with "previous mistakes" and wastes the opportunity for "broad consensus on a project of national and strategic scope".

The study for which the IMT launched a public tender is intended to "compare only three solutions, which undermines the process and deprives it of its character" of strategic environmental assessment, they point out.

Two of the solutions that must be evaluated refer to the construction of a new airport in Montijo, which environmental associations consider unfeasible in the environmental impact assessment and which the Administrative and Fiscal Court of Almada reinforced in the sentence it issued.

The eight entities claim that the executive has no "strategic vision" by not opting for a rail connection to the new airport project, noting that "the railroad gains preponderance in Europe" and that the solution to build a new airport in Montijo, "by which the train can never arrive is an anachronism".

"As there is a National Road Plan and a National Rail Plan (this one being consulted), the organisations defend that there must be a National Airport Plan, both for passengers and cargo", they point out.

A strategic environmental assessment should be "truly comprehensive", they argue, and be "coordinated and permanently monitored by a committee of experts from different areas".

The associations (ZERO, ANP/WWF, FAPAS, Geota, LPN, Quercus, SPEA and SPECO) will appeal to the President of the Republic, Prime Minister, Government, parties with parliamentary representation, mayors and other entities with responsibility in the matter for these claims .