Parliament has begun to discuss a PS project to establish the criteria that allow villages to obtain the titles of town and city, filling a legal gap, as the previous law was repealed in 2012.

The need for a framework law for the attribution of the category of villages had a parliamentary consensus, despite criticisms of the criteria presented in the socialist proposal, which were considered to be out of date.

PSD, BE, PAN, CDS-PP and, naturally, the proponent PS admitted the legal vacuum and the symbolic importance of this classification for the localities, having shown willingness to discuss the framework law.

The previous law, from 1982, was revoked in 2012 during the administrative reform that reduced the number of parishes in the country to 3,092.

Socialist deputy Pedro Delgado Alves stressed that the objective is not "to oblige anyone to change the classification of villages, but to give this opportunity" through "uniform guiding criteria", to have laws updated in relation to the current reality.