The deputy of the PS and coordinator of the working group Constança Urbano de Sousa told Lusa that there is “a consensus” in this regard obtained in the last few weeks, but that the vote on the specialty will only be made at a meeting of the committee on Constitutional Affairs, Rights, Freedoms and Guarantees, still without a set date, so it is not possible to have a forecast of when the legislative process will be concluded.

The working groups, which can be created in parliament, make a prior debate on laws, advance with indicative (or indicative) votes, but the vote in the specialty is made in parliamentary committees and the final global vote in the plenary of deputies.

The parties, according to deputies of the commission, referred a definitive position to the debate and vote in the commission. The CDS and the deputy from Chega did not participate in the work.

Debates in the Assembly of the Republic are currently underway to amend the nationality law, after the PCP and PAN diplomas were generally approved on 12 December, 2019. The Left Bloc asked the commission to withdraw, without vote on your project, given the PS's announced vote against.

In the commission, a working group was created that, in recent weeks, despite the restrictions on the functioning of parliament due to the outbreak of covid-19, has held meetings, including by videoconference, to advance this dossier.

Constança Urbano de Sousa explained to Lusa that the PS proposal, which reached consensus, allows “the children of legal immigrants - who have a residence permit or who have taken up residence for at least one year - who were born in Portugal can be Portuguese”.

The Bloco de Esquerda proposes that nationality be attributed to children born in Portugal, even if the parents are foreigners and do not reside in the country.

The PCP, in its original project, proposes that "those born in Portugal may be Portuguese citizens, provided that one of its parents, being a foreigner, is resident in the country", regardless of title or length of residence.

Between these two, the PS, which did not have its own project, presented proposals to change the PCP diploma and admits Portuguese nationality to the children of foreigners since “at the time of birth, one of the parents legally resides in Portuguese territory, regardless of title, for at least a year”.

Under the current law, originally from 1981 and amended in 2018, that period is now two years, which the Socialists intend to reduce to one.

The reduction of this period is explained by the ex-minister and current deputy of the PS: “It is the temporal criterion used by the United Nations and the European Union to distinguish immigration from other movements of people or tourists, from people visiting for business or on stays of short term".

Consensus also had, in the description of the coordinator of the working group, the proposal of the People-Animals-Nature party (PAN) to expand access to naturalization to people born in Portugal after 25 April, 1974 and before the entry into force of the nationality law in 1981.

It is "a historic problem" to solve the situation of people who, on 25 April, 1974, were deprived of Portuguese nationality, by decree 308/75, for not living in Portugal for five years.

Some of these people have regularized their situation, through various channels, such as marriage, but there are still an undetermined number of citizens in this situation.