Bit of an update on yesterday’s debate of the new Government Programme in the legislature. On immigration, all I found interesting was this - but nothing that hasn’t been said already:
Chega wants to know whether or not Montenegro will “prevent family reunification ” and what changes it foresees in the nationality law. In his response, he is certain that the rules will be “tightened”, but this “does not mean suspending the possibility of family reunification for immigrants” because, he believes, “having integrated families” is good for the economy and for the country’s development.
If there is a departure from Chega here, there is a rapprochement in the changes to the nationality law . The Government foresees the “extension of the deadline for applying for nationality through naturalization”, it wants a “demonstration of the full integration” of the applicant, and also adds, in the most controversial measure – for raising constitutional doubts – that there will be “an extension of the situations in which nationality may be lost due to very serious behavior, particularly of a criminal nature”.
Not sure if you are aware, but some other countries already practice this approach without much opposition.
I recall there was a certain female spy who was stripped of her British citizenship after they found her working for the KGB. But to your point, the UK does not have a constitution, so…
Actually I think that’s totally reasonable as long as it only applies in really extreme cases and only applies to dual nationals. Probably a dozen or so EU countries already have laws where you can be stripped of citizenship for things such as terrorism, treason, espionage, or fraudulent naturalization.
This may (hopefully) be fake news, but the extension of the citizenship application wait to 10 years is now being reported as fact by several websites:
One of the most concerning things I could see right now is about the Fund Route for GVs. Many GV applicants selected Funds with a period of maturity of 7-8 years. What is going to happen when new citizenship law requires 10 years of resident? Fund terminates in 8 years. But they need more time to apply for citizenship…
I haven’t seen any Portuguese media report 10 years as the final proposal, only that it’s anticipated, so I don’t think Nigerian press would have the scoop . There hasn’t been any confirmation from Leitão Amaro yet, and probably won’t be for a couple of months while they work out a legislative schedule. Then it will take months to draft the law, put through committees, public consultations, parliamentary hearings and vote, presidential and constitutional court sign off etc etc. And we still don’t know who it would apply to even if they do attempt the change. We are a long, long way from having any clarity. The last changes to nationality law took 2 years from proposal to implementation!
Can’t we apply for permanent residency after five years of GV residency cards?
I believe the 7-8 year terms of such qualifying GV funds were so designed to ensure the GV residency cards - when finally issued some years after the date of the actual investment - would cover the fund term to the five year mark when we are expected to apply for permanent residency and/or citizenship under current rules. Unless they change the rules around permanent residency qualification then a GV fund term of 7-8 years is still good.
Remember that citizenship and permanent residency are separate processes under different laws dealt with by different departments.
I don’t expect to achieve 5 years of residency within 7-8 years of Fund. If one gets his 1st card within first 5 years, it is already a realistic situation. By 7-8th year, maybe getting 1st renew done is already a great success.
This topic comes up every 3 months. Seems like a good topic for a wiki to aggregate all known info from multiple sources.
Or people can keep asking the same question every 3 months without any concrete resolution.
I believe you can, but then you need to meet residency requirements like anyone else:
General physical presence rule for permanent residence, i.e.
You must not be absent from Portugal for more than:
6 consecutive months OR
8 non-consecutive months within any period of 2 years.
This is based on the law:
Article 80 of Law 23/2007 (the Portuguese Immigration Law, as amended).
So this would make the golden visa → permanent residence worse
. There hasn’t been any confirmation from Leitão Amaro yet, and probably won’t be for a couple of months while they work out a legislative schedule. Then it will take months to draft the law, put through committees, public consultations, parliamentary hearings and vote, presidential and constitutional court sign off etc etc. And we still don’t know who it would apply to even if they do attempt the change. We are a long, long way from having any clarity. The last changes to nationality law took 2 years from proposal to implementation!
