The manifestação de interesse doesn’t have an exact equivalent in the GV process, but it’s basically the first step in the Brazillians’ process, the opening play in their game of chess with SEF. As I understand it they submit one of these and then get a response back semi-quickly that basically means, we acknowledge receipt of your application. They then wait in biometrics hell like GV applicants.
So based on this, it seems to me that the SEF response that skippy.full mentions above would be the equivalent; e.g., the response you get back from SEF after submitting your application, but before pre-approval, basically acknowledging that your application has been received with the necessary documentation submitted.
That said, remember that the GV is a different application process and we still don’t know whether the courts will ultimately find that it’s the application date, this initial “application acknowledged” status from SEF, or formal pre-approval, that will count under this new law.
Edit: I was just going to log into the portal at https://ari.sef.pt to show you a screenshot of what I’m talking about, but I see they’ve pulled the whole portal offline now. Not sure if a temporary server fault, or a sign of things to come?