Moreira said that the text of the bills is to be analysed at a meeting of the parliamentary party on Thursday 15 January, and should reach the speaker's table the following day.


According to another Socialist deputy, Pedro Delgado Alves, the two proposals do not represent a "great technical novelty", given that the party had already submitted similar texts.


The debate on the bills is expected to take place on 21 January, at the same time as a separate bill on adoption by same-sex couples that has been tabled by the smaller Left Block.


On Wednesday, Left Block parliamentary leader Pedro Filipe Soares told journalists that "all studies show that, where there is love and the capacity to bring up these children, their development has nothing to do with the sexual orientation" of the adoptive parents.

Noting that there is expected to be a free vote on the proposals, he held out the possibility that they could be approved this time round.


The last time the subject came before parliament it was approved on the first reading but rejected on the second, amid confusion over whether members of the governing coalition had intended to oppose the principle or not.