Just as political leaders are due to revise the Foreigners’ Law ‘vetoed’ by President Marcelo earlier this summer, the Immigration Consensus think tank has advocated for granting Portuguese nationality to immigrants who have been legally residing in Portugal for six years, provided they can demonstrate “sufficient knowledge” of the Portuguese language and the country’s “civic principles”.
In an opinion made public yesterday, the group, which brings together all the former High Commissioners for Immigration and other experts, suggests that the government “compromises between the different perspectives at hand, changing the period of legal residence in Portugal from 5 to 6 years to be able to apply for naturalisation”.
The government’s Nationality Law, which will be voted on next month, foresees a change from the current five years (counted from arrival and not from the residence permit) to seven years for Portuguese-speaking citizens and 10 for everyone else.
For the members of the Immigration Consensus – which is organising a colloquium on the subject at the University of Lisbon on Monday – “access to nationality, for the right reasons, allows for stability and security in the country of residence and contributes to investment in long-term integration and inclusion”.
According to the authors, “the application for Portuguese nationality presupposes – and does not dispense with – a conscious and absolute respect on the part of the applicant for the Constitution of the Portuguese Republic, as well as the rule of law and the conventions and other key legal instruments to which Portugal is a signatory”.
Acknowledging that Portuguese society is divided on the issue of immigration, the group aims to “seek compromises and meeting points between the different political-party positions present, seeking balance, common sense and, of course, respect for the fundamental principles of a democratic society, structured on respect for the rule of law.”
Access to nationality should not, the authors stress, be “seen as an instrumental option for other purposes, such as those arising from holding a passport from a Schengen country”, but rather a “very important step in the process of integration and inclusion for many immigrants who want to integrate into the national political community effectively”.
For this reason, “sufficient knowledge of the Portuguese language and of the civic principles and coexistence arising from the Portuguese Constitution should be reinforced requirements for the attribution of nationality by naturalisation.”
“Portugal, as a community of citizens, should take a positive view of the fact that someone who fulfils all the requirements of the law wants to join this community, assuming the duties and rights that come with it,” the think tank considers, acknowledging that recent election results have contributed to “pressure for a restrictive revision of the law in force.”
For the group, the separation of deadlines in the government’s proposal for citizens from Portuguese-speaking and non-Portuguese speaking countries “violates the principles of equality and non-discrimination”.
As well as nationality, the think tank says that immigrant citizens should be given “guarantees that they have a viable alternative to applying for nationality if they wish to remain in Portugal – namely with the efficient and adequate renewal of their Residence Permit”.
The group calls for the strengthening of the Institute of Registries and Notaries and for “ensuring access to learning Portuguese for all non-Portuguese speaking immigrants”, “strengthening formal and non-formal education responses and certification”.
At the same time, “a national test should be introduced, for people over the age of 18, to demonstrate knowledge of civic principles and coexistence arising from the Constitution of the Portuguese Republic”, along the lines of similar models that exist in Spain and the United Kingdom (“Life in UK Test”).
The group also calls for transparency from the state to combat disinformation, with the annual publication of a “national report on the processes of granting and acquiring Portuguese nationality, with data broken down by method of access, socio-demographic profile and service response times”.
Regarding the loss of nationality for citizens who have been naturalised for less than 10 years as an accessory sanction after a serious crime – as proposed by the government – the authors of the opinion argue that the Constitutional Court should review this.
Access to nationality “is an issue that should merit a broad consensus in Portuguese society and not be either a weapon in the political struggle or a factor in exacerbating the polarisation and social fracturing that we have been witnessing,” they conclude.
Created in the middle of June, this group is made up of four former high commissioners, former Secretary of State Catarina Marcelino, researchers Lucinda Fonseca and Catarina Reis Oliveira, and association leaders Eugénia Quaresma, director of the Portuguese Catholic Worker for Migration, and Paulo Mendes, president of the Association of Immigrants from the Azores.
Source: LUSA
