“There are all the restrictions, even inhumane ones, especially regarding children. Then there’s the 500,000 euros, which are still enough to buy Portuguese nationality. I spend 14 days a year here and gain nationality. No one asks about color, nationality, religion, culture… Nothing. It is, at the very least, hypocrisy,” warned Paulo Raimundo in Vilar de Mouros, Caminha, Viana do Castelo district, speaking to journalists after participating in the Women’s Walk, organized by CDU/Porto.
The communist stated he does not agree with the notion that there is a government alignment with Chega’s agenda concerning proposed changes to immigration and nationality laws, because “it is an agenda of the PSD and CDS.”
“Is it also Chega’s? Yes. But if it weren’t also of the PSD and CDS, it wouldn’t have progressed as it did,” he noted.
For Raimundo, the nationality law “boils down to a fundamental idea: obstacles for many and all the benefits for those with money,” as “it is still the case that 500,000 euros are enough to buy Portuguese nationality.”
On Friday, the Government’s proposed changes to the nationality and immigration laws proceeded to the specialty stage without being voted on in general today, as well as Chega’s projects on the same matters.
The requests presented by the Government and the Chega party were included in the updated voting agenda made available late in the morning—they were not in Thursday’s first version—and were approved in a plenary session with votes against from BE and PCP.
The Government’s proposed changes to the nationality diploma, now set for committee discussion, aim to increase the residency period required in Portugal for citizenship acquisition (from five to seven or 10 years, depending on whether the applicants are from Portuguese-speaking countries or not).
The Government also forecasts the possibility of losing nationality for those naturalized for less than 10 years if they receive an effective prison sentence equal to or greater than 5 years for committing serious crimes. As for granting original nationality to children of foreign residents in Portugal, a legal three-year residency period will be required.
Chega’s project, also moving to the specialty stage, proposes “the loss of nationality acquired by naturalization or when having dual nationality, in cases where the individual commits acts that severely undermine sovereignty, national security, or the essential principles of the rule of law.”
