The number of applications for Portuguese nationality “has increased considerably” and, over the past six years, more than 1.4 million applications have been submitted, according to the Secretary of State for Justice.
During the procedural hearing of the Minister of Justice before the Parliamentary Committee on Constitutional Affairs, Rights, Freedoms and Guarantees, Maria José Barros admitted that the increase in the number of nationality applications is an issue that “concerns ” the Department of Justice.
“Over the last six years, more than 1.4 million applications have been filed. For comparison, in 2022, 300,000 applications have been filed, while in 2013, 100,000 applications have not been exceeded,” said the Secretary of State for Justice.
-In response to a question from the PSD, Maria José Barros also gave a brief overview of the platform created last year by the Institute of Registers and Notaries (IRN) for the submission of nationality applications. Although the objective of the platform is to improve response times, Maria José Barros admitted that there are still difficulties: “The response of the platform is not what we would like and the response times Average expectations are high.
For now, she added, regarding urgent requests, responses are given to requests submitted in the second half of October 2024. However, outside of emergency, requests made two years ago are still being processed.
