Montenegro admits that State entry into REN can download light invoice

AND. statements to journalists after a meeting at the headquarters of the National Emergency and Civil Protection Authority in Oeiras, Luís Montenegro was asked about the re-entry of the State into the capital of REN, stating that “all elements relating to this operation will naturally be made available and will be subject to the appreciation and scrutiny of the country and political parties”.

The chief of the executive added, however, that it is operations with listed companies “that have their own rules and that we must follow so that there is no distortion in the market”.

“ That is what has been done so far and that is what will also be done from now on”, he stressed.

Luís Montenegro further pointed out that the objective of this operation is to be able “to contribute even more permanently to the implementation of a system whose investments” allow the electricity network “more easily to the people’s homes and also to companies” with the aim of “effectively reducing costs”.

“No one says that it is intervention in REN that causes a price change, but it is one of the conditions for us to protect the strategic interest of having a more resilient network, protecting our critical infrastructure, making the system flow so that it can be optimized and, being optimized, it can be reflected later on in the conditions of access“, he said.

On Friday, it was notified to the Securities Market Commission (MCVM) that Parpublica, a company managing shares in the Portuguese State, bought from the Spanish of Pontegadea Inversiones a share of 13.7% of REN's capital.

The operation is conditional on the granting of a visa by the Court of Auditors and represents a return of the Portuguese State to the shareholder structure of the company, whose privatisation process was completed in 2014, during the PSD/CDS-PP government led by Pedro Passos Coelho, with the departure of the remaining 11% that were still in the public sphere.