Oh, from the title I thought it was how long the bureaucracy takes currently!
I have been thinking of doing this for about 25 years, but every time I get the will, something collapses in the system
I think the most worrying thing is that almost all immigrants will just use PT as a stepping stone

So should Portugal reciprocate the UKs proposal to impose a 10-year wait to apply for permanent residence?

Why not.
We've previously agreed that for every 10 Tugas in the UK, there is 1 Brit in Portugal.
If both countries would impose a 10-year wait, the ratio of 1:10 would still be the same, and may even increase to 1:15 🤭

They. Need. Us. More. Than. We. Need. Them 🤭

Yep, a lie back then and a lie today. Way to go.

It was.
​​​​Perhaps it's only valid about Tuguese. Their numbers in the UK continue to increase, while the number of Bris in Portugal does not seem to be growing 😎

Doesn't it?

População estrangeira com estatuto legal de residente por nacionalidade

I refuse to accept data from 2023 😂

Yup... and it didn't work out so well then either.

I think you'll find their numbers in the UK are a smal proportion of those elsewhere. Portugal has always been a country of emigration.

Plus, numbers in the UK are always suspect. 35 years ago there were supposedly 20,000 in the UK, yet upwards of 35,000 attended the 10th June celebrations in London alone.

British presence in Europe has been impacted by Brexit and a natural fall in the number of Brits with the wherewithall to move.

As far as I understand

There's less than 50k British here in Portugal and about 400k Portuguese in the UK.

UK about 70m people and Portugal about 10m.

The seesaw doesn't appear to be be balanced

Fine. Even if true, this is all irrelevant to the original debate about reciprocity.

I couldn't care less if Portugal has always been a country of emigration. I do care however that they appear unable to reciprocate to perhaps anyone.

For example, over 4 months for exchange of EU driver's licence in Lisbon, vs anything between a couple of days and couple of weeks anywhere else in the EU for exchange of a Portuguese driver's license.

As a Nobel laureate in literature once wrote: "Life returns to us only what we give to the others" 😎

SWMBO exchanged hers in less that 2 weeks...... and that in the Alentejo

As always, not so much where you are but what you know, perhaps.

Had to contact Solvit at the end. And took a month after that.

I'm not sure that it's appropriate to attribution of nationality - there are so many variations even within Europe. What would be the point of having a law on the matter in a constant state of flux because of what other countries were doing?

I just find it baffling that the govt here appears to have got a bee in its bonnet over the matter of previous (sensible, from the point of view of the problems they were addressing) alterations to the law and are reversing them with added interest. And from my point of view it's the other changes (eg removing jus soli citizenship and associated matters) that are the bigger shame than the 10 year residence requirement, even though that is also a big backward step.

By default, nationality by naturalization is always granted as a concession, it is not a right.

They just made a huge issue out of a non-issue, although they could have achieved what they wanted with much less ado.