At a press conference at parliament, MP Pedro Delgado Alves presented the PS's proposals for reconsidering the nationality law to address its unconstitutional aspects and balance it, and also proposed a transitional regime. The socialists maintain their vote against the sanction of loss of nationality, despite the amendment proposals on this matter presented by the PSD and the CDS.

PS will not approve

"If the PSD wants to approve a nationality law with certain characteristics, it will not be able to approve it with the PS. If, ultimately, it is willing to moderate the proposal it presented, here we are," he said, a day after it became known that there was no agreement between Chega and PSD for this law that will be reconsidered in parliament on Wednesday, 1 April.

Delgado Alves said that this is not a "ping-pong exercise of returning the ball to the PSD," but considered that the socialists are "being quite clear and are making quite a few concessions."

"Even more than is reasonable, because we believe that there should be some stability and this matter should be concluded," he said.

According to the PS deputy, "AD has a choice, it has a path that makes the approval of the nationality law viable," which may not be the one they would like, but it stems from PSD and CDS-PP not having an absolute majority in parliament.

Negotiating partner

"And therefore, it has to find a negotiating partner. Here you have a parliamentary group, I dare say, with some common sense and some capacity to try to build solutions," he pointed out, noting that so far the PS has not received a response from PSD regarding the proposals it has sent them.

According to Pedro Delgado Alves, for the PS to make the law viable, "some substantial change would be necessary," and that is why he presented these proposals, with a "very narrow scope," emphasising that "it is not about recovering all the proposals from the past," but only those that are "absolutely indispensable."

"It cannot pass without a transitional regime, without safeguarding expectations, and without some reduction in the very long residency periods that are being proposed," he summarised as proposals that the PS wants to see approved, in addition to the changes necessary to overcome what the Constitutional Court pointed out as unconstitutional.

Parliament will reconsider on 1 April the decrees that sought to amend the Nationality Law and the Penal Code (creating the accessory penalty of loss of nationality), which were returned to parliament after the Constitutional Court's rejection.