The CTI was created at the end of 2022, with the mission of carrying out a strategic environmental assessment for the airport expansion in the Lisbon region and having to initially analyse five options: Portela + Montijo; Montijo + Portela; Alcochete; Portela + Santarém; Santarém.

The team, installed at the National Civil Engineering Laboratory (LNEC) under the coordination of Professor Rosário Partidário, decided to add the options Portela + Alcochete, Portela + Pegões/Vendas Novas, Rio Frio + Poceirão and Pegões/Vendas Novas to the study.

The CTI's work did not go without setbacks and controversy, firstly due to delays in hiring the necessary resources, which threatened the date of December 31st as the deadline for presenting conclusions.

The CTI was also the target of accusations of lack of transparency and conflict of interests, by political actors and television commentators, who recalled that Rosário Partidário was part of the LNEC team that was in the study that led to approving Alcochete as the best location, in 2008, during the Government of José Sócrates (PS).

These accusations were rejected by the CTI, by the president of the Monitoring Committee, engineer Carlos Mineiro Aires, and by the Government, defending the seriousness of the study.

The Government of António Costa had promised a quick political decision, after the CTI's conclusions, but, between the beginning and end of the work that culminated with Alcochete at the front of the race, the PS executive 'fell' and legislative elections were scheduled for March.

The final decision should be left to the Government that results from the vote, although there are business associations, among others, that defend a regime pact between PS and PSD to speed up the choice and ensure that, after the elections, there is no going back on an issue that is over 50 years old and has already been the subject of several studies.

The model adopted for the study of the different locations was agreed upon between the PS Government and the main opposition party, but, after presenting the conclusions, the PSD announced the creation of an internal working group to analyze the topic.

According to CTI, the construction of the new airport does not require public financing, but given the airport concessionaire's preference for Montijo, which involves less investment than Alcochete, it remains to be seen what means the Government will have to force ANA to carry out the work elsewhere.

The president of the ANA Board of Directors, José Luís Arnaut - who was twice a minister in governments led by the PSD - rejected, in an interview with TVI, that Vinci supports the construction costs of the new accesses to the new airport, in Alcochete.

The Secretary of State for Infrastructure, Frederico Francisco, pointed out that it is not up to ANA/Vinci to decide what investments to make in the new airport and guaranteed that there are mechanisms in the concession contract, signed in 2012 between the PSD/CDS-PP Government and the French multinational so that the decision rests with the State.

The two options identified as viable - Alcochete and Vendas Novas together with Humberto Delgado, later becoming a single airport - involve an investment of 8,258 million and 8,170 million euros, respectively.

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