Luís Montenegro announced the creation of a sovereign fund for the Portuguese State to acquire significant shareholdings in strategic companies in the energy, banking, telecommunications and airport infrastructure sectors. According to the Prime Minister, these would not be majority holdings, but sufficient to allow the State to have influence and capacity for intervention in these companies. The fund's resources would come from the State budget and would aggregate holdings already held by the State and others that may be considered strategic.
The article's author, Alfredo Marques, questions the initiative, considering that the reference to financial return as a selection criterion indicates a business purpose mixed with the defence of strategic sectors. He stresses that strategic sectors are not to be trifled with and that the announcement must be interpreted in light of EU legislation and the practices of the most influential countries.
The EU approved in June 2026 a regulation that obliges Member States to have national mechanisms for controlling foreign direct investment on grounds of security and public order. This regulation replaces another from 2019 and defines a minimum list of strategic sectors, allowing countries to extend control to other relevant sectors. The instrument of action is not of a financial nature, but rather the use of political power, allowing governments to block or condition acquisitions of strategic companies. Countries such as France, Germany, Italy and Spain already have similar regimes, known as 'Golden Power'.
Portugal adopted in 2014 a Decree-Law in this regard, but which does not require prior notification and has never had practical effects. This legislation was created after the privatisations carried out during the troika programme, which included EDP, REN, Ana Aeroportos, CTT, BPN and TAP. The author questions whether the creation of a sovereign fund is the correct approach, arguing that the most sensible course would be to quickly transpose the provisions of the European regulation into Portuguese law, whose transposition is mandatory until January 2028.
