The Government's proposals to amend the Nationality Law will be subject to discussion in detail, without a vote, as suggested by the Socialist Party on Thursday. Restrictions on immigration and the naturalization of foreigners were debated in the parliamentary chamber on Friday morning.
After tense debate, Portugal postpones vote on anti-immigration package. Parliament decides to endorse the government's request, which manages to avoid votes in the plenary and send projects to the committee to gain time and ʽunite the countryʼ.
After a heated debate in Parliament, the Democratic Alliance (AD) government managed to approve a request to postpone the plenary vote on the anti-immigration package that changes the Nationality and Foreigners laws.
The AD projects, approved by the Council of Ministers and forwarded to Parliament, divided the plenary and will go directly to debate by deputies in the Committee on Constitutional Affairs, Rights, Freedoms and Guarantees.
The two requests, presented by the Government, were included in the replaced voting script, made available mid-morning, and were not included in the first version on Thursday.
The Executive intends to introduce changes to the granting of nationality to descendants of foreigners residing in Portuguese territory. Thus, there will now be time limits for granting nationality: seven years for citizens of Portuguese-speaking countries; ten years for those of other countries.
Luís Montenegro's Government also wants to make it impossible to naturalize immigrants sentenced to effective prison sentences and to withdraw nationality from citizens who have been naturalized for a shorter period of time and who have committed highly serious crimes.