The bill, signed by the entire PSD parliamentary bench, provides for stateless persons to obtain nationality after four years of legal residence in the country, a period that begins “from the moment the citizen submits the application in that condition”.
According to António Rodrigues (PSD), “at this moment, no stateless person knew how to regularise their own situation” in Portugal.
Stateless persons do not have a nationality and are in legal limbo. In 2024, 149 cases of this type were registered, through a complex process accessible only to those who have lost their original nationality, come from extinct countries, or have never been nationals of another country.
“These are very rare cases and have no impact” on the universe of foreigners. Portugal is obliged to act, under international conventions to which it is a party,” said António Rodrigues, in previous statements to Lusa, stressing that the aim of this bill is “very simple and devoid of ideology”, seeking only to “regulate the vulnerability of people”.
The proposed regime defines the Agency for Integration, Migration and Asylum (AIMA) as the entity responsible for assessing cases, determining the conditions for recognition of statelessness, and overseeing procedures and applicants’ rights.
“The approval of this regime, which regulates the procedures for recognising stateless status, is essential and indispensable so that stateless persons residing in national territory have a means of accessing a temporary residence permit and, through this permit and after a certain period of legal residence (which, in the amendments to the Nationality Law, we proposed to be four years), access to Portuguese nationality,” say the Social Democratic MPs who signed the document.
Socialist MPs Pedro Delgado Alves, Eurico Brilhante Dias, Isabel Moreira and João Torres are also presenting a bill on the subject and stipulate that each applicant will be entitled to “benefit from a provisional residence permit, valid for a period of six months”, from the moment they submit their application until the conclusion of the process.
After granting status, unlike the PSD, which uses the term temporary residence permit, the Socialists propose the creation of a specific residence permit for stateless persons, which will be “valid for two years, renewable for successive periods of the same duration”.
Livre preferred to change the stateless status, in force since 2023 and approved on its initiative, which also provides for four years of residence to access Portuguese nationality and grants a “provisional residence permit” to applicants for periods of six months.