UTAO Flags €1.342 Billion in Public-Private Partnership Risk for the State — Motorway Concessions Account for 92.6% of the Bill as Lusoponte, Brisa and Seven Others Lodge €509 Million in Covid Traffic Claims
A report to Parliament's budget unit UTAO puts the state's contingent liabilities from public-private partnerships at EUR1.342 billion, with motorway concessions accounting for 92.6% of the exposure.
The Portuguese state is exposed to more than €1.3 billion in potential costs from public-private partnerships, the bulk of it tied up in disputes with motorway concessionaires, according to a new analysis prepared for Parliament.
The figures come from the Unidade Técnica de Apoio Orçamental (UTAO, the technical budget-support unit that advises Parliament's Comissão de Orçamento, Finanças e Administração Pública — the Budget, Finance and Public Administration Committee). In a report covering January to September 2025, the unit put the identified contingent liabilities at €1.342 billion.
The split is heavily skewed toward the roads. The motorway sector accounts for €1.243 billion — 92.6% of the total — while health-sector partnerships represent €99 million, or 7.4%. A separate dispute with ANA, the airport concessionaire, adds a further €211 million in potential exposure on top of the headline figure.
Much of the road-sector risk stems from the pandemic. Nine concessionaires — Lusoponte, Oeste, Douro Litoral, Baixo Alentejo, Baixo Tejo, Beira Interior, Litoral Oeste, Douro Interior and Brisa — are together claiming some €509 million in lost revenue from the collapse in traffic during the Covid-19 lockdowns, pursued through arbitration and requests for the financial rebalancing (reequilíbrio financeiro) of their contracts. A further €331 million is linked to contract rescissions and court decisions, and €233 million to other contingent compensation.
The health partnerships, though a smaller slice of the money, are politically sensitive. Hospitals built and once operated under PPP arrangements — in Braga, Vila Franca de Xira, Loures and Cascais — remain entangled in litigation even after the management contracts were handed back to the state, a reminder that unwinding these deals can be as costly and contentious as signing them.
Contingent liabilities are not the same as confirmed bills. They represent the maximum the state might have to pay if every claim succeeds, and the eventual cost will depend on arbitration awards and court rulings that can take years to resolve. But for a government that has promised to keep the budget in balance and avoid a deficit in 2026, even a partial materialisation of €1.3 billion in claims would be a meaningful hit.
The report also revives a long-running Portuguese debate about the wisdom of the motorway and hospital PPP model, which expanded rapidly in the 2000s and has generated repeated rounds of renegotiation, arbitration and public-accounts scrutiny ever since. By laying the numbers before Parliament, the UTAO ensures that the contingent cost of those decisions stays firmly on the fiscal radar — and on the agenda for the looming battle over the 2027 budget.
