There’s plenty of PTSD on this forum (I should say, present continuous stress disorder) by definition. Literally every single person here has suffered - some very grievously indeed - from uncertainty and delays.
Nevertheless, I will stick my neck out and suggest that the long arc of Portuguese immigration policy bends towards increasing liberality.
If we consider the changes in immigration law and regulations in the last 6 years:
- First residence card went from 1 year to 2 years.
- Naturalisation period went down from 6 years to 5.
- The naturalisation period went from continuous to interpolated 5 years within the last 15 years.
- Subjectivity around “effective connection to national community” for naturalisation went away.
- Alternate exam-free path to language proficiency proof opened up.
- Automatic renewals for ARI (temporarily) opened up with zero documentation.
- New regulations point to more automation, less documentation, less biometrics.
- Naturalisation law amended to consider earlier start date (details awaited)
All the changes above benefit ARI applicants. In the regular non-ARI paths, Aliens Act was tweaked to let people come in on a tourist visa, get a work contract, file an expression of interest, and live and work legally. No per-country quotas, no work visa lottery, no high skill, qualification bar. This is some serious Ellis Island shit. “Give us your tired, your huddled masses yearning for bacalhau”. I don’t know of any other tier-1 passport country where you can do this.
Of course the best policies in the world are useless without good implementation, and Portugal’s implementation track record has been terrible. There are policy setbacks too - the GV clauses in Mais Habitacao’s original draft were shocking because they bucked this trend, and threatened retrospective harm. But the same parliament which passed Mais Habitacao, passed an amendment to the nationality law (in its lame duck phase, too), which shortens the naturalisation timeline for most immigrants. No simplistic model of Portugal will account for both.