Nationality attribution debated today in Parliament at Chega's request

The Assembly of the Republic is debating today, on the initiative of Chega, the rules relating to the granting of Portuguese nationality, days after the Government presented proposals to amend the law.

The debate's theme is "the lack of control over the granting of nationality and the need to limit family reunification".

The Minister of the Presidency, António Leitão Amaro, will be present at the debate, an official Government source told Lusa.

This is the first urgent debate of the new legislature and is also the first item on today's plenary agenda.

The debate takes place just days after the Government announced that it intends to move forward with several changes to the Nationality Law.

In recent days, the president of Chega has expressed openness to negotiating these changes and indicated that his party will not constitute "an obstacle" to their viability in parliament.

Still, André Ventura argued that changes to the Nationality Law must be effective and "go even further".

The Chega leader said that this debate will be a first step to understand whether there will be a "rapprochement of positions" and that he hopes that the Government "shows openness to some issues that are important to change".

André Ventura also announced that Chega will propose the creation of a parliamentary inquiry committee on the actions of the last PS and PSD/CDS governments in granting nationality and residence to foreign citizens.

On Monday, the Minister of the Presidency indicated that one of the proposals foresees the possibility of judges ordering, as an additional sanction, the loss of nationality for citizens naturalized for less than ten years who commit certain "serious crimes" with effective prison sentences equal to or greater than five years.

The Government also wants to increase the minimum period of legal residence to obtain Portuguese citizenship: seven years for citizens of Portuguese-speaking countries and ten years for the rest, with the period starting from the date of obtaining the residence permit.

Read Also: Nationality Law? "It seems to me that there is some lightness" on the part of the Government