In the document, the PSD (Social Democrat Party) points out that “after eleven years of successive incidents, the Algarve Litoral sub-concession has become a story of legal disputes between the intervening parties, the outcome of which is not foreseeable, but which will certainly involve a much greater financial cost to the public purse than had been anticipated”.

The requalification of the EN125, in its total extension, was announced in 2008, but a renegotiation of the contract between the State and the concessionaire dictated that, in 2014, the section between Olhão to Vila Real de Santo António passed under the jurisdiction of Estradas de Portugal, now part of Infraestruturas de Portugal (IP).

However, the new contract was rejected more than once by the Court of Auditors (TC), the last time in 2019. According to the PSD, “notwithstanding the renegotiations of the sub-concession and addenda to the contract, no other contract was targeted” by the TC, apart from the one that was concluded in 2010, under José Sócrates’ government.

“Given this intricacy of facts that hinder the completion of the EN125 upgrading works, which are the object of the Algarve Litoral sub-concession contract, it is imperative that we put an end to this inestimably costly storyline, in order to guarantee that the collective needs of the Algarve’s population are met”, the resolution reads.

The social democrats also stress that “the non-completion of the EN125 upgrading work is causing serious harm to the population, given its negative impact on the region’s socio-economic situation, on the development of regional investment attractiveness and also, and in particular, on the reduction of accidents due to the road’s unreliability”.

The PSD also alerts to the fact that, currently, the EN125 is “a road that registers a high rate of road accidents, aggravated by the existence of several black spots, which were intended to be eliminated through the completion of rehabilitation works, and also by the growth in traffic intensity compared to initial estimates, resulting from the introduction of tolls on the Via do Infante and the consequent transfer of traffic from this route to the EN125.

The PSD therefore recommends that the Government “urgently promotes the necessary procedures to rescue the Algarve Litoral sub-concession” and “promote the necessary steps” so that IP “proceeds to the rapid conclusion” of the works that are the object of the Algarve Litoral sub-concession contract, especially the section between Olhão and Vila Real de Santo António.

The draft resolution is signed by MPs Adão Silva, Cristóvão Norte, Rui Cristina and Ofélia Ramos.