The intentions were announced by the Secretary of State for Infrastructure, Hugo Espírito Santo, at the hearing on the Casa Branca-Beja line held in the parliamentary committee on Infrastructure, Mobility and Housing.

“We want to connect this line to the Beja Air Base. It is an investment that makes perfect sense. It is not an alternative or a variant of Cuba to Beja. It is from the line that is being renovated to make a connection” to BA11, he specified.

The Secretary of State alluded to “an ongoing discussion with the European Union on military mobility”, indicating that the stretch between Casa Branca, in the municipality of Montemor-o-Novo, Évora district, and Beja is part of the military mobility corridor.

“Therefore, we want to include this Casa Branca-Beja section and the connection to the Beja Air Base as part of the military mobility axis,” he continued.

Alternative solutions

According to Hugo Espírito Santo, the public company Infraestruturas de Portugal (IP) has already been mandated to “analyse alternative solutions to ensure” this connection, “in a subsequent project” to the modernisation of the Casa Branca-Beja line.

The Secretary of State for Infrastructure said that the Government has also requested that IP carry out a preliminary study for the modernisation of the railway connection between Beja and Funcheira, in the municipality of Ourique, which has been deactivated for some years.

“In fact, we need to have redundancy in the capacity to access the Port of Sines, and this is the redundancy. That is, Sines, Alcácer do Sal, Ourique, Beja and then Caia,” the official justified.

In addition, he stressed, the Beja-Funcheira section “can be part” of the high-speed connection to the Algarve.

At the hearing, the governor revealed that the Ministries of Infrastructure and Housing and of Environment and Energy are "preparing a Council of Ministers resolution to approve the expenditure and multi-year nature of the work" on the Casa Branca-Beja section, which he admitted could be ready "in the coming days."

Replacement of funds

According to Hugo Espírito Santo, this resolution will "assume the 20 million that are in the Alentejo 2030 operational program" and replace the funds from that program that have since been withdrawn (the €60 million) with funds from the Sustainable 2030 program and the Environmental Fund.

In November of last year, the European Commission proposed a rapid movement of armed forces within the European Union, with the removal of barriers and the creation of an emergency framework, for a free movement area of ​​“military Schengen” by 2027.

The Commission's proposal for the next Multiannual Financial Framework (2028–2034) foresees 10 times more budget available for military mobility, with a proposed total of €17.65 billion in the future Connecting Europe Facility, intended for investments in dual-use transport infrastructure.

To achieve this effective free movement of the Union's armed forces, the European Commission will identify 500 priority projects in military mobility corridors to eliminate bottlenecks.