President of STRN says that of the "700 thousand pending processes, around 30% are Sephardic and around 30% are naturalization" of immigrants, estimating that the remainder are of Portuguese descendants.
The Union of Registry and Notary Workers (STRN) estimated this Tuesday that 30% of the 700,000 pending nationality applications are for naturalization of immigrants, regretting that the guardianship does not publish figures.
“ There are public policies that talk about numbers, but these numbers are not public ,” Arménio Maximino, president of the STRN, told Lusa, referring to the announced change in the nationality law.
Currently, Portugal is one of the European Union countries that requires the least amount of residence time for an immigrant to apply for nationality (five years after the first application for a residence permit), but the Government wants to increase this period to seven years in the case of Portuguese-speaking citizens and ten years in other cases.
“What we know is that, of these 700,000 pending processes, around 30% are Sephardic and around 30% are for the naturalization” of immigrants , said the union leader, explaining that the majority of the remaining requests are from people of Portuguese descent who want to see their ancestral nationality recognized.
Currently, the services of the Institute of Registries and Notaries (IRN) are processing nationality applications for 2021, but Arménio Maximino expects that the existing demand will cause this delay to increase even further.
“There are people who are frightened by the government’s measures, they have lived here for more than five years and now they want to request their nationality, as is their right,” explained the union leader.
The STRN criticizes the IRN’s “lack of transparency” in disclosing pending cases and the type of processes in question.
“What we have is an estimate, but we cannot even know what the nationality of origin is” of the requests for nationality through naturalization.
Changes to the nationality and immigration laws “have a direct impact on registry offices”, because they “increase demand for services that only have people leaving and no new people being hired”, added Arménio Maximino, recalling that the average age of IRN employees is 60 years old.
“The pressure is brutal in all the Conservatories and there are no resources”, particularly in the summer months, when many “Portuguese emigrants want to resolve pending issues”.
Therefore, he warns that the decision by the guardianship to want to recover 40% of the delay, “by administrative decision and without reinforcements”, is doomed to failure.
“People work long hours and there is no capacity to respond,” admitted the union leader.
“This has hit rock bottom and the PSD is doing no different to the PS. In opposition, it presented countless measures that it never implemented,” said Arménio Maximino, considering that the lack of political decisions “contributed to the growth of populism and demagogy in Portugal.”
At the press conference to present the changes to migration policies, the Minister of the Presidency, António Leitão Amaro, said that the Government will propose the “extinction of the extraordinary naturalization regime for Portuguese Sephardic women ”.
The current law “had the purpose of historical reparation”, following the expulsion of the Jews in the 14th and 15th centuries.
It was a regime that “had its time”, but now ceases to exist, added Leitão Amaro.
According to the National Institute of Statistics, the attribution of nationality has decreased in recent years.
In 2023, the last year available on the portal, 41,393 foreigners accessed Portuguese nationality, 16,985 of whom were residents in Portugal (mostly immigrants) and the rest residing abroad (mostly Portuguese descendants).
In recent years, the granting of nationality has been decreasing: in 2022, 46,229 foreigners received nationality (20,844 residents in Portugal); in 2021, there were 54,537 (24,516 applications from Portugal); in 2020 there were 59,817 new nationals (32,147 residents in Portugal).
It was only in 2019 that new nationalities registered a reversal, with 30,478 foreigners obtaining nationality (21,099 residing in Portugal).