Portugal News

The prime minister's dismissal will be formalized in December, but OE2024 will be approved before.

The President of the Republic accepted the resignation of António Costa from the position of Prime Minister and called the parties with parliamentary seats for Wednesday and the Council of State for Thursday and will speak to the country afterwards.

Prime Minister António Costa submitted his resignation to the President of the Republic, Marcelo Rebelo de Sousa, this Tuesday, after the Public Ministry (MP) announced that the prime minister is the target of an autonomous investigation by the Supreme Court of Justice into projects lithium and hydrogen, says SIC Notícias.

Institute of Registries and Notaries (IRN) is, from today onwards, the entity responsible for granting and issuing the Portuguese Electronic Passport, namely the common passport, the special passport, the temporary passport and the passport for foreign citizens.

In addition to becoming the entity responsible for granting and issuing the passport, the IRN also integrates assistance to foreign citizens for the renewal of Residence Permits (temporary and permanent).

AIMA starts operations with 34 service counters throughout the country and will open at least 10 fewer new branches in the space of a year

Agency inherits about 347 thousand pending issues and launches digital portal by the end of the year for online applications for the granting and renewal of residence permits

The Agency will move forward with a strong investment in digital infrastructure and in terms of human resources, with the hiring of more than 190 employees

The Agency for Integration, Migrations and Asylum will succeed the SEF and the High Commission for Migrations, which is also abolished.

AIMA is responsible for administrative functions related to foreign citizens in Portugal, namely residence permits and refugees.

The High Commission for Migration will be responsible for the reception and integration of immigrants in Portugal.

AIMA will inherit from SEF around 300,000 pending immigrant legalization processes.

The President of the Republic has approved "the bill approving the organization of the Borders and Foreigners Coordination Unit". Responsibilities will be transferred to seven entities, leading to a new configuration of the Portuguese border control system.

The President of the Republic has approved, this Friday, the bill for the organization of the Borders and Foreigners Coordination Unit, created in the context of SEF's discontinuation and which will operate within the Internal Security System.

The number of people who will now depend on an AIMA decision was counted by the Government on October 20th. It is more than double the titles granted by SEF in the entire year 2022.

In a remarkable surge, the SEF contact center recently experienced an unprecedented volume of calls, surpassing 671 calls per second. This surge, occurring on October 17th, witnessed an astonishing 29 million call attempts in just 12 hours.

Many appointments are not kept and people are forced to reschedule. “It affects everything that involves issuing residence permits. Concessions, renewals. Everything that involves printing and issuing a document is congested, it is limited”, warns the union