The document accompanying the law proposal submitted today by the Government to the Assembly of the Republic includes, for the first time, references to the financial obligations related to the LAV [high-speed line] PPP1 [public-private partnership 1] contract in the State Budget Report.
The contract outlines several obligations for the state, including “payments during the development period as counterparts for the planning, design, and construction of Campanhã station, the surface component of Gaia station (Santo Ovídio), the road component of the bridge, and the track change devices to be installed on the connection to the Northern Line in Canelas [Estarreja].”
On September 1, the AVAN Norte consortium (formerly LusoLAV: Mota-Engil, Teixeira Duarte, Alves Ribeiro, Casais, Conduril, and Gabriel Couto) announced it intends to propose the high-speed station in Gaia south of Santo Ovídio and two bridges over the Douro instead of one road-rail bridge, different from what was foreseen in the tender specifications.
The European Investment Bank stated on September 19 that it funded the high-speed line based on a proposal meeting the public tender specifications. However, the winning consortium seeks changes after signing the concession.
According to the EIB, the consortium’s initial proposal “reflects the depth and specifications approved during the public tender process and included in the project’s Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA),” and “any material changes to the project would require a formal review by the creditors and relevant authorities.”
The Porto-Oiã section of the high-speed rail line received €875 million in funding from the European Investment Bank (EIB), marking the largest individual contract signed under InvestEU. The total cost of the section amounts to €1,661 million (current value of availability payments).
The high-speed line concession contract, signed on July 29 and published on the Base portal on Wednesday, stipulates a single road-rail bridge over the Douro, with the Gaia station located in Santo Ovídio.
The location of the high-speed station in Gaia at Santo Ovídio, with connections to two metro lines (Yellow and Ruby), and the solution for a road-rail bridge over the Douro, decisions now challenged by the construction consortium, have been planned since September 2022, during the first presentation of the high-speed line project.
On September 2, Infrastructure Minister Miguel Pinto Luz stated he was unaware of the alternative proposal for the Gaia station and the two-bridge solution proposed by the high-speed construction consortium, but considered it “important to clarify” the issue legally and judicially.
After the project award in October 2024, during which the consortium released a video featuring Santo Ovídio station and a road-rail bridge, an alternative solution was presented in April—not anticipated in the tender specifications—with the station in Vilar do Paraíso and two bridges instead of one.
On April 16, the Government affirmed that “any potential modification must be fully safeguarded from a legal standpoint, be in full compliance with the tender requirements, and secure the agreement of the municipalities,” recalling that the project “is based on the solution presented in the proposal by the winning consortium LusoLav, aligned with the preliminary project introduced by IP,” which includes the station in Santo Ovídio and a connection to the Yellow Metro Line, and a single bridge.
In addition to the EIB loan, partly guaranteed by the InvestEU program, the project will further benefit from €900 million in additional financing from various national and international financial institutions, €480 million in grants under the Connecting Europe Facility (CEF), and €150 million in co-financing by IP.
