The parties PS, Livre, Bloco de Esquerda, PAN, and PCP voted against the proposed nationality law amendments during the Constitutional Affairs Committee review process. JPP Deputy Filipe Sousa supported the changes.
The nationality law amendments received 157 votes in favor and 64 against, securing a majority of over two-thirds.
Today, before the final global vote on the nationality law amendments, PSD, CDS, Iniciativa Liberal, and Chega dismissed a series of motions to plenary presented by PS and Livre.
The main proposal by Chega to revise the nationality law only garnered votes from its own members, with JPP abstaining and all other parties voting against it.
Regarding the version that concluded the specialty process last Friday, PSD and CDS agreed to a reformulation by Chega stating that nationality obtained through fraudulent means would be revoked, the only approved motion in today’s plenary session.
The final version of the proposal stipulates that nationality can be obtained after ten years of legal residence in Portugal, with a seven-year requirement for citizens from Portuguese-speaking countries and the European Union.
Among other changes, there will now be a requirement for applicants to demonstrate, through “tests or certificates,” sufficient knowledge of the Portuguese language and culture, history, and national symbols.
More consensual, though opposed by Livre, was the condition that nationality applicants must not have been sentenced to prison terms of two years or more.
During the specialty phase, PSD and CDS added a condition for nationality access regarding subsistence guarantees for residents in the country, which PS labeled as a “concession to Chega,” prompting Pedro Delgado Alves to warn of “risks of injustices.”
Over PS’s opposition, children born in Portugal will only receive nationality if “one parent has legally resided in the country for at least five years,” another measure supported by Chega.
Additionally, the PSD/CDS government proposal ends the naturalization of children born in Portugal to foreigners living illegally in the country. The current law allows naturalization regardless of the parent’s title.
The ruling parties rejected the socialist demand for a transitional period until March next year in the new law’s regulatory provisions.
The legislation from the specialty phase mandates that the new law takes effect the day after its publication.
