The Portuguese government’s Migration Action Plan envisages transforming the current mobility visa for immigrants from the Community of Portuguese-Speaking Countries (CPLP) into a Community visa (Shengen), which allows them to move around the European Union.
The mobility agreement signed represents “a commitment that Portugal must not only maintain, but also commit itself to implementing the necessary improvements”, so that it is allowed “access to the Shchegen Area for holders of CPLP residence permits”, can be read in the document presented today, after the Council of Ministers on migration.
To this end, the government will administratively extend CPLP visas for one year, which are due to expire at the end of this month, and “improve the monitoring of the terms of responsibility presented under the mechanism for demonstrating means of subsistence, in order to identify and combat possible situations of fraud”.
Of the 400,000 pending immigrant cases, a large proportion relate to CPLP citizens who have managed to regularize themselves in Portugal through the mobility visa.
The services of the Agency for Integration, Migration and Asylum (AIMA) will open an online space for Portuguese-speaking citizens to process their applications, with the aim of “speeding up the procedures for scheduling visa applications”.
One of the criticisms of the CPLP visas and one of the reasons for the European court case against Portugal is that these documents are only valid within national territory, creating a problem in inspections with other countries in the Schengen area.
In the document, the executive also undertakes to develop a “national plan for the implementation of the European Union’s Pact on Migration and Asylum”.
The CPLP is made up of Portugal, Brazil, Angola, Mozambique, Cape Verde, Guinea-Bissau, São Tomé and Príncipe and Equatorial Guinea.
