Lisbon, June 25, 2025 (Lusa) - The deputy secretary of state for cabinet affairs and immigration stated on Wednesday that the government planned the changes to migration policy announced this week, but postponed them because of the elections.

At a conference reviewing the first year of the Diário de Notícias DN Brasil project, Rui Armindo Freitas emphasised that the government had made the changes announced on Monday, which were long-standing commitments.

Among the changes announced are amendments to the nationality law, the law on foreigners, the harmonisation of residence permits in the Community of Portuguese Language Countries (CPLP) and new rules for highly skilled immigrants.

“The work began in April last year, and our political choices must continue. (...) These measures would have been presented earlier if we had not had an interruption in the political cycle,” said Rui Armindo Freitas at the conference.

The project to revise the migration system began in June last year and provided for these steps. However, the interruption of the legislative session and the elections in May 2025 forced a delay in implementing these measures, he explained.

Commenting on the first year of DN Brasil, the minister pointed out that the previous government presented its action plan for migration on 3 June, almost at the same time that this editorial project was born.

For Rui Freitas, in the current context, there must be editorial projects that combat misinformation, seeking to “get the truth to readers”.

“We started from chaos, with more than 400,000 cases pending at the Agency for Integration, Migration and Asylum (AIMA),” in addition to the problems with CPLP authorisations (which required harmonisation with European rules) and document renewal, with “papers renewed successively since 2020.”

“We set up a mission structure that multiplied the state’s capacity to provide services sixfold,” because the facilitation of entry in recent years meant that “the elasticity of state services progressed more slowly than demand.”

The government’s priority for entry is immigrants from the CPLP, along with attracting investment and talent.

“Language is a critical factor for the integration of immigrants in Portugal”, and “immigration has to work as a system, so that we can open and close doors to have the immigration we want and welcome those who come here in an appropriate manner,” he said.

Rui Freitas promised a migration policy of “firm moderation, clear rules, leadership in the immigration debate, and a platform that supports respectful dialogue”.

He emphasised that clear rules promote constructive discourse, and only “with democratic societies” and “accurate information” can we build a “cohesive society that knows how to welcome”.

During the session, Filipe Alves, the director of Diário de Notícias, recalled the role of the media in combating disinformation and defending democratic societies.

For his part, the group’s administrator, Marco Galinha, praised the DN Brasil project, considering it “very important to give the Brazilian people an editorial voice”.

Today, he added, Diário de Notícias has “five million monthly online readers worldwide”.

DN Brasil, launched in early June last year, is a project aimed at the Brazilian community living in Portugal.

The project features one or two pages in the print edition of Diário de Notícias every week, written in Brazilian Portuguese, as well as a supplement and a dedicated website.

PJA/ADB // ADB.

Lusa/Fim