For the PS, there is “at least two points” of the Government’s proposed law approved this Friday in the specialty, with changes mostly proposed by PSD and CDS-PP, “which will be difficult to frame constitutionally”.
This Friday, the PS regretted the lack of agreement with the PSD on the and raised doubts about the constitutionality of the proposal that will go to the final vote on Tuesday.
These positions were conveyed to journalists at a press conference, in the Assembly of the Republic, by the parliamentary leader of the PS, Eurico Brilhante Dias, and by deputy Pedro Delgado Alves, vice-president of the bench.
“It was our purpose to reach an agreement and, regrettably, this agreement was not possible”, stated the parliamentary leader of the PS, considering that it was important that this law was changed by “the two major parties that over the last 50 years have sought to legislate on topics of this sensitivity”.
Eurico Brilhante Dias highlighted that the nationality law “it is an organic law, which needs 116 votes” in favor to be approved in plenary and that “an agreement that would lead to the PS voting in favor of the diploma, and not just an abstention”.
For the PS, there is “at least two points” of the Government’s proposed law approved this Friday in the specialty, with changes mostly proposed by PSD and CDS-PP, “which will be difficult to frame constitutionally”.
“It is not absolutely certain that the law will have 116 votes”
Regarding a possible request for constitutionality inspection, the PS parliamentary leader responded: “I can’t make a decision today because we will be making that assessment.”
In this regard, Eurico Brilhante Dias highlighted that “it is not absolutely certain that the law will have 116 votes”, and that, if it is approved, “the President of the Republic will be able to carry out preventive inspection”.
“And we will wait for that moment. However, we will carry out a first analysis of the final document and we will make decisions from there”, he added.
The PS parliamentary leader pointed out how “center point” of disagreement on the part of his party the repeal of the rule of law in force that safeguards “the time elapsed since the moment the residence permit was requested” in Portugal “for the purposes of counting deadlines”.
PS presented a “intermediate proposal”, but it was rejected
The PS presented a “intermediate proposal” so that “the citizen could count the time from the moment in which the State, the Public Administration does not meet the response deadline”, but it was rejected.
“For us it is a serious break in the relationship between the Public Administration and citizens, in fact, in this case with foreign citizens, but if we take this paradigm to other spheres it is serious in the relationship between the Public Administration and citizens”, argued Eurico Brilhante Dias.
According to the PS, with the repeal of this rule, an inequality will be created in the counting of time that causes “the biggest doubts” of constitutionality.
The PS argued that it was important to explain the lack of agreement, after days of intense contacts on this matter with the PSD and, through it, with the Government, until after midnight on Thursday.
PS criticized “the use of indeterminate concepts” such as “knowledge of culture”
Pedro Delgado Alves pointed out as another point of contention the rejection of a transitional periodwhich will mean that, for those who are close to reaching five years of residence to acquire nationality under the current law, the period will immediately double with the eventual entry into force of the new law.
Furthermore, the deputy criticized “the recourse to indeterminate concepts”like the “knowledge of culture”.
Before, BE’s coordinator and sole deputy stated that she feared the final approval of the changes to the nationality law, which she associated with “radicalization of the right” and qualified as “a cruel law”.
Speaking to journalists, Mariana Mortágua considered that “the biggest victims of the new nationality law will, without a doubt, be children born in Portugal and who will be treated as foreigners in their own country”.
For the BE coordinator, “there is a dispute over political space” between PSD and Chega, “a process of ongoing radicalization of the right and in which the PS ends up participating, unfortunately, giving in to the principles of a law that it defended in the past”
