The arguments against the location.

What study is this?

The choice of Alter do Chão was presented as a technical decision, the result of an assessment carried out in coordination with the Municipal Council and due, under Council of Ministers Resolution No. 111/2025, to be concluded by the end of 2025. The announcement was made on 11 March 2026, already after that deadline. In other words: by the time it was announced, the study should already have been on the table.

And yet the location that assessment produced does not see the country's main natural gas pipeline entry point, which runs through the middle of it; does not know who the owners are, more than fifty private families, nor what those lands are used for, cork and holm oak montado, cork, livestock and cereal; ignores a UNESCO asset in the same municipality, the Alter Stud; and ignores the proximity of areas belonging to the Natura 2000 network.

Either the assessment identified all of this and chose the site anyway, and the decision is indefensible; or it did not, in which case it is not a site-selection study but a rubber stamp on a decision already taken. Either way, the request is the same: that the Government show the study.

Public acknowledgement that the studies were missing

The location of the future military firing range in Alter do Chão was decided and announced before any environmental impact study was carried out, before any public consultation procedure was initiated and before any formal technical statement from the competent authorities. On 11 March 2026, at a press conference convened in Lisbon, the Minister of National Defence Nuno Melo declared Alter do Chão as the certain destination of the new infrastructure. On that date, none of the necessary administrative acts for the procedure had been carried out.

The legal regime of the Environmental Impact Assessment, established by Decree-Law no. 151-B/2013, with subsequent amendments and revised by Decree-Law no. 152-B/2017, in the version given by Law no. 4/2025, requires that the environmental assessment be prior to the decision on the location and essential characteristics of the project. The inversion of this principle empties the Environmental Impact Assessment of its protective function: it becomes a procedure for a posteriori legitimisation of a political decision already taken, instead of being the instrument that this decision should respect.

The Minister of National Defence himself publicly admitted this gap in his statement to the country. Confronted with the question of the procedures to be fulfilled, he stated that these would be done after the announcement:

"What does not invalidate a set of deliberative and administrative procedures until the final work, namely impact studies and others, which are those that arise from the law and will be done." Nuno Melo, Minister of National Defence, press conference, Lisbon, 11 March 2026 (statement published on portugal.gov.pt on 12 March, 10:26).

This statement is first-order documentary material. It recognises, in an official speech by the competent government member, that the legally required studies had not yet been carried out at the time when the project's destination was made public. It constitutes a solid basis for future contentious impugnation, parliamentary oversight initiative and any request for suspension of the acts that may be carried out in sequence.

Direct confession by the Minister in parliamentary committee

In a parliamentary hearing on 12 March 2026 and in a press conference on 11 March, Minister Nuno Melo confirmed in three passages: that at the time of the announcement the exact cartography of the polygon had not yet been defined; that the transfer will occur in phases that will last ten to fifteen years; and that regarding the impact on the Coudelaria de Alter "the flights are very few, the launches even less". The three statements are quotable in future contentious proceedings as documentary material that recognises, in the words of the competent government member, the lack of prior technical instruction.

From tranquillity to expropriation: the ministerial contradiction

In a few weeks, the speech of the Minister of National Defence went from guaranteeing tranquillity to admitting forced expropriation. In the announcement of 11 March 2026, he stated that "the populations can be tranquil". In a hearing before the National Defence Commission, in April 2026, the same Minister stated "we will have expropriations, certainly", recognising that it is the "painful part of the investment". The admission of expropriation before any published study, any declaration of public utility and any environmental assessment inverts the legal sequence, which requires evaluating and deciding before expropriating.

Compressed chronology: fourteen months in secret

The conversations between the Ministry of National Defence, the Air Force and the Alter do Chão Municipality must have started in January 2025. The public announcement was only made fourteen months later, on 11 March 2026. During those fourteen months, the Government approved Decree-Law 35/2026, Order 89-I/2026/1 and six more Decree-Laws on SAC, all motivated by the TJUE C-613/24 process. No local democratic structure was informed: the Municipal Assembly does not register the theme, the local PS found out at the March 2026 Municipality meeting, SPEA, FAPAS and Quercus found out through the press on the same day as the announcement.

Law no. 4/2025: sixth amendment to the RJAIA

Law no. 4/2025 constitutes the sixth amendment to the Regime Jurídico de Avaliação de Impacte Ambiental, approved by Decree-Law no. 151-B/2013 and revised by Decree-Law no. 152-B/2017. In a procedural piece, the applicable citation is "RJAIA, in the version given by Law no. 4/2025". The legal framework requires the Environmental Impact Assessment prior to the decision on location and the Environmental Incidence Assessment prior to any project that may significantly affect a Natura 2000 network site, even if located outside its limits.

Protection of the Natura 2000 network and Cabeção Special Conservation Area

The preliminary area identified for the project's implementation lies about thirteen kilometres from the Cabeção Special Conservation Area (European code PTCON0029), part of the Natura 2000 network, within the impact radius of an air firing range. This area protects natural values of community importance, namely montados of cork and holm oak, Mediterranean garrigue and habitats that support populations of steppe birds and sensitive bats.

The protection of these values is not only national. It stems from Council Directive 92/43/CEE, known as the Habitats Directive, transposed into Portuguese law. Article 6, paragraph 3, of this directive is particularly clear:

"Plans or projects not directly related to the management of the site and not necessary for that management, but likely to have a significant impact on that site, individually or in combination with other plans and projects, will be subject to an appropriate assessment of their implications for the site as regards its conservation objectives. Having regard to the conclusions of the assessment of the implications for the site and subject to the provisions of paragraph 4, the competent national authorities shall only authorise those plans or projects after having ascertained that they will not adversely affect the integrity of the site in question." Directive 92/43/CEE, Article 6, paragraph 3.

There is a direct conflict between two acts of the Portuguese State itself, carried out with little more than a month's difference. On 11 February 2026, Decree-Law No. 35/2026 was published, complemented by Order No. 89-I/2026/1 of 23 February, with the declared aim of strengthening environmental protection for classified sites, including the Cabeção SAC. On 11 March 2026, the same State announced the installation of a military polygon precisely in that territory.

The coexistence of these two acts within thirty days is legally unsustainable. The assessment of implications required by the Habitats Directive was not carried out; the least harmful alternative was not demonstrated; the overriding public interest required by paragraph 4 of the same article was not declared or justified in accordance with Community law.

Government self-contradiction: DL 35/2026 and Order 89-I/2026/1

On 11 February 2026, the same Government approved Decree-Law 35/2026, which concludes the classification of the Cabeção Special Conservation Area (PTCON0029) and establishes mandatory conservation measures for the area that includes Alter do Chão. On 23 February, Order 89-I/2026/1 approved the SAC Management Plan, with 48,394 hectares. On 11 March, twenty-eight days after the Decree-Law, the same Government announced the firing range exactly in the same area. The military clause inserted in DL 35/2026 does not waive the Environmental Impact Assessment, mandatory under Article 6, paragraph 3, of the Habitats Directive, which takes precedence over national law.

Direct financial risk in the TJUE C-613/24 process

On 5 March 2026, six days before the announcement of the firing range, the Court of Justice of the European Union condemned Portugal in the C-613/24 process to a fixed fine of 10 million euros and a daily compulsory penalty of 41,250 euros, calculated at 750 euros per day for each SAC not yet properly designated. Decree-Law 35/2026, invoked to reduce the fine, is worth precisely 750 euros per day of savings for the State. Announcing the violation of this decree in the same area disarms the Portuguese defence in the European process and exposes the public treasury to increased financial risk.

Proximity to the Monforte Special Protection Area

The planned polygon lies about five and a half kilometres from the Monforte Special Protection Area (PTZPE0051), designated by Regulatory Decree 6/2008 under the Birds Directive, and about thirteen from the Cabeção SAC. There is no physical overlap, but European law requires assessing the effects of any project likely to significantly affect these sites, even when located outside them (Article 6(3) of the Habitats Directive; Holohan judgment, C-461/17). That assessment of implications, owed to the Monforte SPA and the Cabeção SAC, was never carried out.

The network of Special Protection Areas and cumulative effects

The Monforte Special Protection Area is not the only one in the vicinity of the polygon. Within a radius of about thirty-five kilometres, there are other Special Protection Areas of the Birds Directive classified for the same community of steppe birds, namely Vila Fernando, Veiros, Campo Maior and São Vicente. The stone-curlew and the great bustard function in a metapopulation at the regional scale, moving between these nuclei for feeding, reproduction and wintering. The intense and prolonged disturbance generated by an air firing range in the centre of this set affects the connectivity and viability of the entire network, and not just the nucleus of Monforte. The Habitats Directive obliges, in its Article 6, paragraph 3, to assess the cumulative effects on the set of sites likely to be affected, and not site by site in an isolated manner.

Priority habitat 3170 and Halimium endemism

Order 89-I/2026/1 identifies 25 habitats and 8 protected species in the Cabeção SAC. Notably, the habitat 3170 (Mediterranean temporary ponds), a priority under the Habitats Directive, and the plant Halimium umbellatum var. verticillatum, whose global distribution is concentrated in more than 60% in this site. The destruction of priority habitat requires direct authorisation from the European Commission.

Destruction of critical habitat for steppe birds

The selected territory coincides with the Alter do Chão Important Bird Area (IBA PT017, 1,317 hectares in the nucleus, criteria A1, B2, C1 and C6), identified and classified by BirdLife International and recognised internationally as one of the most relevant areas in the Iberian Peninsula for steppe birds. The classification as an IBA does not have autonomous legal force, but it constitutes a technical reference criterion that national and European courts accept as evidence of ornithological relevance.

The species whose conservation justifies the classification include the little bustard (Tetrax tetrax), classified as Critically Endangered in Portugal, with a national decline of about 90% over twenty years and only about 1,736 males estimated in the country, according to the 4th National Little Bustard Census (BIOPOLIS/CIBIO, June 2026); the great bustard (Otis tarda), Endangered; the lesser kestrel (Falco naumanni); and the Montagu's harrier (Circus pygargus), with 119 to 207 breeding pairs estimated in the entire national territory, a decline of 76 to 79% in 10 years. All these species nest on the ground, in extensive agricultural mosaics with cereal, fallow and pasture, and are particularly intolerant to noise disturbance, intense human movement and habitat fragmentation.

On 16 March 2026, in statements collected by the press (PÚBLICO report), nature conservation organisations such as the Portuguese Society for the Study of Birds (SPEA) and FAPAS voiced opposition to the location, warning that the area is a breeding refuge for several of these species and that the installation of the firing range will produce habitat loss, indirect mortality by collision and abandonment of breeding territories.

The European Birds Directive (Directive 2009/147/CE) imposes on the Portuguese State protection obligations that extend beyond the classified Special Protection Areas, including the conservation of habitats of migratory and threatened species. The case law of the Court of Justice of the European Union has understood that projects with impacts of this nature in areas recognised as IBAs are equivalent, in judicial practice, to a violation of these obligations.

Risk of rural fire and incompatibility with fire management

The planned perimeter is located in an area classified, in the official land-use planning cartography, with a high and very high risk of forest fire, over flammable montado and areas burned in the last decade. The shooting activity, with predictable use of tracer, pyrotechnic or explosive ammunition, is incompatible with the national policy of integrated rural fire management enshrined in Decree-Law No. 82/2021. Furthermore, the presence of undetonated ordnance and the access restrictions typical of a military firing range make it practically impossible for fire-fighting teams to intervene, increasing the risk for the montado and nearby populations.

Lead contamination and public health: the precedent of Lajes Air Base

A live-fire range leaves in the soil and water a legacy of lead and other heavy metals that persists for centuries and is difficult or impossible to remove. The risk is neither theoretical nor distant. In June 2026, a doctoral study in Forensic Anthropology at the University of Coimbra, funded by the Regional Government of the Azores, detected concentrations of lead and other heavy metals significantly higher in the skeletons of former residents of Praia da Vitória, next to Lajes Air Base, than in those of Angra do Heroísmo, twenty-three kilometres away, reinforcing the suspicion, now almost a decade old, of a link to cancer incidence in the area.

The researcher himself stresses that the results are preliminary and that a cause-and-effect relationship has not yet been proven, and the Lajes contamination has been attributed mainly to fuel spills. Even so, the case shows, in Portugal, that a military installation can leave a trail of heavy metals that reaches the population and is only detected decades later. It is precisely this kind of long-term risk, over an area of aquifers and farmland, that the decision on the firing range refuses to study before deciding.

The Sulfúrea Spa of Cabeço de Vide: a unique hydromineral resource under legal protection

The municipality of Fronteira, directly affected, hosts in the parish of Cabeço de Vide the Sulfúrea Spa, exploited under hydromineral concession HM-36, whose holder is the parish council itself. Its water is sulphurous and hyperalkaline, with a pH of 11.55, one of the highest values known in the world, drawn from a confined fissured aquifer in serpentinised ultramafic rocks. It is about three thousand five hundred years old, has been used since Roman times and is studied internationally as an analogue of extraterrestrial environments.

The resource is legally protected. The concession's protection perimeter was approved by Order no. 152/2012, under the regime for natural mineral waters, and it restricts or prohibits activities liable to alter the quantity or quality of the water, in particular those that interfere with recharge, infiltration or the connectivity of the fractures that feed it.

According to preliminary overlays by the Cabeço de Vide parish council, the resource's concession holder, there is an indication that the planned firing-range perimeter crosses or touches the protection zone. Confirmation depends on official cartography, and a formal clarification has already been requested from the Directorate-General for Energy and Geology. If confirmed, the installation collides with Order no. 152/2012, just as it collides with the Natura 2000 network, the Municipal Master Plan and the gas pipeline regulation. Regardless, the detonations, the sustained vibration and the risk of contamination are, by their nature, hardly compatible with the integrity of an aquifer whose water took millennia to form.

The renewables contradiction: clean energy is banned where they want to open live fire

On 18 June 2026, the State published in the Official Gazette the revision of the National Strategy for Nature and Biodiversity Conservation 2030, which for the first time delimits zones off-limits to the installation of new renewable energy projects, on ecological sensitivity criteria. Among the species whose protection justifies these exclusions are, expressly, the steppe birds, the very ones that justify the Alter do Chão Important Bird Area and the region's Natura 2000 network.

The contradiction is from the same week and it is head-on. The State concludes that clean, silent and reversible energy projects must be banned in sensitive territory to protect these birds, while at the same time promoting, in the same kind of habitat, a military firing range with live fire, detonations, lead contamination, fire risk and fighter-aircraft overflights. If the State's own conservation framework bars a solar plant or a wind turbine in these zones, it cannot, in coherence, authorise a military activity of far greater impact. The firing range ends up on the wrong side of two lines the State has just drawn: that of the Natura 2000 network and that of the new exclusion zones of the Biodiversity Strategy.

Incompatibility with the Municipal Master Plan

The Municipal Master Plan Regulation of Alter do Chão prohibits the installation of infrastructure of this profile in the land category covering the planned area. The Master Plan in force results from the Amendment to the 1st Revision, approved unanimously by the Municipal Assembly of Alter do Chão on 30 June 2023, on a proposal from the Municipality chaired by Francisco Miranda, and published by Notice no. 18418/2023 in the Official Gazette, 2nd Series, no. 186, of 25 September 2023.

The area targeted for the firing range is classified, under the Municipal Master Plan in force, as Forest Conservation Space. The regulation, in its article 17(6), provides:

"In Forest Conservation Spaces, new construction and any drastic change in land use are prohibited, as are all activities liable to compromise the integrity of the vegetation cover and the protected ecological values." Municipal Master Plan Regulation of Alter do Chão, article 17(6) (Notice 18418/2023, Official Gazette, 2nd Series, no. 186, of 25 September 2023).

Building a military range with fixed installations, runways, command buildings, magazines and firing zones constitutes new construction and a drastic change in land use, in the exact terms of what the rule prohibits. The very Municipality that today accepts the project was the Municipality that approved this protection category less than three years ago.

This contradiction has a direct legal consequence: any administrative act licensing the infrastructure at the announced location breaches the territorial management instrument in force. Normal precedence would require a prior revision of the Master Plan, with public discussion and an opinion from the Alentejo Regional Coordination and Development Commission. None of these steps has even been initiated.

Multi-municipal incidence and conflict with the IP2 road corridor

The project's incidence is not confined to Alter do Chão. The parishes of Assumar and Vaiamonte, in the municipality of Monforte, fall within the planned perimeter, which makes Monforte a directly affected municipality and not merely a neighbouring one. This multi-municipal incidence was acknowledged in Parliament, in the request listing Fronteira, Monforte, Crato, Ponte de Sor and Portalegre among the affected municipalities.

There is also a territorial-planning conflict. In March 2026, Infraestruturas de Portugal launched the tender for the study of a motorway-profile road link in the IP2 corridor, between the A23 and the A6, whose study area covers the municipalities of Crato, Portalegre and Monforte. The State is promoting, simultaneously and in the same region, two large-scale structural projects without any compatibility study being public between a seven-thousand-five-hundred-hectare military exclusion zone and a road corridor under study in the same area.

Threat to the Alter Stud and to the UNESCO equestrian heritage

The Alter Stud, founded in 1748 by King João V, is the oldest continuously operating stud farm in the world. It lies in the municipality of Alter do Chão, the same one the State chose for the future firing range. Its mission is to preserve the lineage of the Alter Real Lusitano purebred, whose maintenance depends not only on genetic material but on the living conditions that have historically ensured the behavioural and physical stability of the animals.

Portuguese Equestrian Art was inscribed by UNESCO on 3 December 2024 on the Representative List of the Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity, during the 19th session of the Intergovernmental Committee held in Asunción. The inscription, which has the Alter Stud as its central element, binds the Portuguese State to international obligations of active safeguarding of the material and immaterial conditions that sustain the practice. The practice has also been inscribed on the National Inventory of Intangible Cultural Heritage since 28 April 2021.

The scientific literature on equine ethology and clinical veterinary practice show that the noise of heavy detonations, low-altitude overflights and continuous vibration near breeding areas produce sustained disturbances of horses' autonomic nervous system. These manifest as reduced fertility, miscarriages, lower birth weight, altered feeding and sleep patterns, and persistent behavioural dysfunction. For a breed preserved through the continuity of its standards for almost three hundred years, the installation of a firing range in the same municipality, whose aerial operations extend well beyond the polygon, is a risk that must be assessed before any decision.

The Alter Stud's silence as to its public position on the project does not lessen the problem. The Portuguese State has, at the same time, the sovereign duty to honour the UNESCO commitment and oversight of the Stud. Deciding to install, in the same municipality, a military project of this nature without having formally consulted the heritage manager of the inscribed asset breaches the basic logic of the administration's internal coherence.

Classified archaeological heritage: the Torre de Palma Villa

The area and its surroundings form a heritage ensemble of national importance. The Lusitanian-Roman Villa of Torre de Palma, a few kilometres from the perimeter, has been classified as a National Monument since 1970 and is considered one of the most important Roman archaeological complexes on the Iberian Peninsula. Alongside it, the constraints cartography marks a dense megalithic and archaeological ensemble, with dolmens, the Rabuje Megalithic Necropolis, a bridge of Roman origin over the Ribeira Grande and the Assumar Mother Church. Any environmental assessment of the project will have to include the cultural-heritage descriptor, with an opinion from the Directorate-General for Cultural Heritage, and weigh the effect of military activity on the classified assets and sites and their respective protection zones.

Threat of expropriation of private farmland

The military project covers an area estimated in the order of seven thousand five hundred hectares. The whole of this area is private farmland, used for olive groves, montado, cereals, permanent pasture and extensive grazing, and belonging to family or corporate farms with several generations of continuity in the municipality. The number of farmers directly affected by the targeted area is estimated at more than fifty.

The almost entirely private composition of the perimeter calls for an explanation. The announced area falls, in its near totality, on private farmland belonging to more than fifty families in the municipality. The State has, in the same region, its own public land and community common lands (managed by the commoners) that do not fall on families. No comparative study is known that would justify the choice to expropriate private property rather than first consider using that public or community land. It is one more choice the Government will have to justify with the study it has still not shown.

Council of Ministers Resolution no. 111/2025, published on 17 July 2025, assigns to the Directorate-General for Armament and Defence Equipment (DGAPDN) the competence for the subsequent administrative acts, including, in its express terms, "any expropriations". This resolution opens the administrative path for future recourse to the Expropriation Code, established by Law no. 168/99 with later revisions. In litigation, the administrative choice to concentrate expropriation on private property, when public and community land was available in the region, constitutes an autonomous ground of challenge to the future Declaration of Public Utility, for excessive incidence on private rights when less harmful alternatives were available.

The compulsory-purchase procedure for public utility requires a formal declaration, technical justification, a hearing of the interested parties, the setting of fair compensation and strict deadlines for challenge. Each of these steps is, in itself, vulnerable to contestation. In the present case, the vulnerability increases because the declaration of public utility rests on a siting decision taken with no EIA, no revision of the Master Plan and no prior public study.

Added to the direct losses of expropriation are unforeseen indirect losses: CAP applications in progress are compromised, PRR and PEPAC investments already carried out lose useful amortisation, and centuries-old montados with cork oaks protected by Decree-Law no. 169/2001 and later amendments have no market price that can repair their destruction. The cork oak law recognises the tree as a protected national asset, which makes felling it subject to an exceptional regime.

Census IFAP 2025: 329 to 375 private plots

The cross between the georeferenced IFAP 2025 census and the probable polygon of the firing range reveals, in exact intersection, 329 plots, 10,204 hectares and 58 distinct farmers with confirmed FEAGA beneficiary. In the area of influence, 375 plots, 12,598 hectares and around 81 farmers. The annual loss in PAC subsidies is between 2.7 and 3.3 million euros. The property within the predicted perimeter is, in terms of PAC census, entirely private.

RNTG Dispatch 806-C/2022: three articles violated

The Campo Maior-Leiria gas pipeline, the main point of entry for natural gas in Portugal at 85 bar pressure, crosses 11.8 kilometres within the predicted perimeter. The National Gas Transport Network Regulation (Dispatch 806-C/2022, DGEG) imposes three direct obligations that the Ministry of National Defence ignored: contacting REN before any project that interferes with the gas pipeline (article 7.º n.º 2), maintaining a minimum safety distance of 75 metres (article 19.º), and obtaining prior authorisation for any work in the vicinity (article 57.º).

Disproportionality of military demographic impact

The municipality of Alter do Chão has around three thousand resident inhabitants, according to the 2021 Census. It is a municipality with accentuated ageing and sustained depopulation over several decades, with reduced enrolment schools, a health centre sized for the current population and limited housing stock.

The official government statement of 12 March 2026 declares, quoting Minister Nuno Melo, that the relocation implies the permanent transfer of around two hundred military personnel and their families to the municipality:

"(...) to whose territory two hundred military personnel and their families will move, helping to dynamise commerce and services, having children and other family members studying in schools, working in the region." Statement portugal.gov.pt, 12 March 2026.

The immediate military demographic increase, considering only military personnel and direct dependents, is between six and seven per cent of the current population. In a small community, this movement is equivalent, in institutional practice, to the reconfiguration of the collective identity. It is done without social impact study, without prior sizing of public services, without articulated housing programme and without school integration plan.

The presentation of the demographic impact as an "opportunity" to dynamise local commerce does not replace the technical obligation to assess pressures on housing, schools, health centre and social fabric. The very expression "compensatory investments" used by the Minister implicitly acknowledges that there is a cost to compensate, but does not quantify it, does not schedule it and does not legally bind it.

Estimated total cost: €298 to €608 million

At a press conference on 11 March and a parliamentary hearing on 12 March, the Minister of National Defence publicly refused to reveal any estimate of the total cost. ANA Airports excluded these costs from the financial report of the New Lisbon Airport delivered to the Government. The independent estimate, built from public data (REN, IFAP, land registry offices, equivalent NATO costs), totals between 298 and 608 million euros, plus the daily fine from the CJEU in the event of simultaneous violation of Decree-Law 35/2026.

Economic composition in imbalance with military contribution

The 200 military personnel and their families predicted by the Ministry of National Defence have, by virtue of Decree-Law 172/94, housing and food guaranteed in their own facilities financed by the public purse. The effective flow of military salaries to the local economy represents an estimated fraction between 20 and 30 per cent of 8 to 10 million euros gross per year. In contrast, the destroyed agricultural activity totals, in a conservative annualised estimate, between 18 and 30 million euros (PAC, direct production, cork, agricultural salaries, rural multiplier, equestrian tourism and Coudelaria de Alter brand). The firing range destroys five to ten times more local economic value than the military contribution generates.

The Hydro-Agricultural Development of Veiros and recent public investment

The State invested, in the last decade, in public irrigation infrastructure to fix and intensify agriculture in the affected region itself. The Hydro-Agricultural Development of Veiros, in the municipalities of Estremoz and Monforte, came into operation in 2015, with a dam and a network serving over a thousand hectares of benefited area, and with served areas intended for inclusion in the National Agricultural Reserve. Announcing, a few years later, the conversion of territory in the same region into an exclusion firing range contradicts the public policy of irrigation and agronomy and worsens the economic imbalance: the loss is not only of Common Agricultural Policy subsidies, but of the return on recent public investment in permanent infrastructure.

NATO alternative in Bardenas Reales

The Bardenas Reales field, in Spain, operates under the NATO structure since 1982, with 80 per cent of capacity available for allied users. The annual usage cost is between 5 and 20 million euros, without expropriations, without Environmental Impact Assessment, without conflict with the gas pipeline and without destruction of montado (cork and holm oak woodland). The NATO Smart Defence doctrine, in force since 2012, recommends exactly this model of sharing. Portugal never publicly explored this option.

Mértola as a technical option of the Air Force since 2007

Since 2007, Mértola and Serpa have been identified by the Portuguese Air Force as the best technical option for the relocation of the firing range. The 2008 study estimated 280 million euros at the time, equivalent to around 392 million euros adjusted for accumulated inflation. The technical criteria were favourable: optimal airspace, low demographic density, absence of gas pipelines, less critical Natura 2000 sites. The option was suspended due to local opposition in 2007 but was never publicly reassessed.

The demilitarisation of Alcochete and the false inevitability of the location

The relocation of the firing range is, in itself, necessary: live fire is incompatible with the airspace of the new airport, built on the land of Alcochete. But the numbers show that the choice of Alter do Chão, among all possible locations, was never substantiated. The Alcochete site occupies around 7,539 hectares, and the Government allocated up to 4.5 million euros to its demilitarisation; the footprint of the new airport, however, is around 1,920 hectares in the initial configuration and 3,400 hectares in the maximum expansion reserve. Even in the broadest scenario, more than half of Alcochete is outside the airport infrastructure. The State thus abandons a vast site that has been militarised for decades to create a firing range of seven thousand five hundred hectares from scratch over private agricultural property, montado and Natura 2000 network, without publicly comparing this option with existing alternatives.

Complementary media coverage and television reporting assignments

The television report of 21 April 2026 brings together two distinct voices with different roles. The Mayor, Francisco Miranda, is the first to present the IC13 as a counterpart to the transfer, referring to the 2013 Preliminary Study. Immediately after, an agricultural entrepreneur from Herdade da Chancelaria, with 1,200 hectares on a rental regime, takes up the same IC13 and formulates the quote that stayed: "when there are counterparts, it's because it's not good". The contrast between the two voices documents on the ground the divide between the municipal institutional position and the position of the affected farmers. The F-16 episode over Figueira da Foz (27 and 28 April) constitutes direct operational testimony to the predictable sound effect for Alter do Chão.

Partido Comunista Português as the fourth parliamentary group

On 30 March 2026, the Partido Comunista Português Parliamentary Group, through its Portalegre Regional Organisation, presented formal parliamentary questions to the Government about the case, addressed to the exact location of the land, identification of the affected farmers, compatibility with the Barragem do Pisão, compatibility with the Alter Real Royal Stud, impact on regional tourism, and incompatibility with the Aeródromo Municipal de Ponte de Sor. This adds to the initiatives of the Bloco de Esquerda (18 March), the Partido Socialista (18 March and 25 April) and the Chega (request for hearings, 29 April). Four parliamentary groups have presented formal oversight initiatives.