Residency permits for foreign athletes to be “accelerated”

Portugal: The Agency for Integration, Migration, and Asylum (AIMA) will conclude agreements with several sports federations to speed up residence permits for non-EU athletes.

photo: TPN

In a statement sent to Lusa, the Ministry of the Presidency stated that it had met with "sports federations of various sports (handball, basketball, football, skating, and volleyball) to clarify the procedures for hiring athletes and the respective granting of residence permits".

AIMA, the Foreigners and Borders Coordination Unit (UCFE), the various sports federations, and the Portuguese Professional Football League will conclude protocols relating to "residence permit procedures, including situations that require special speed due to constraints inherent in the transfer periods of extra-community athletes", states the government.

The executive recalls that "for situations that are difficult to reconcile with the temporal constraints inherent to short periods of transfer of athletes, the Foreigners Law already provides that it is possible to grant temporary residence authorisation to foreign citizens for reasons of public interest arising the exercise of a relevant activity in the sporting field".

In this sense, "the specific situation of professional athletes, the economic and social relevance, and the public interest of professional sport justify procedures that allow for rapid processing of their documentary status in national territory, particularly during short periods of recruitment and registration of athletes", considers the government.

The use of this procedure is "justifiable, starting from the transfer periods of the 2024/25 sports season", given the "need for clubs to adapt to the legislation currently in force on migration matters", adds the executive.

Before the meeting, the LPFP, one of the structures that had contested the difficulty in hiring new players, said: "It believes in a sustained and effective solution, capable of providing a structural response to the impact of the recent change in legislation, which is already seriously affecting the capacity performance of clubs in the market".

On June 3, the Government put an end to the expression of interest in the regularisation of foreigners in Portugal, by requiring immigrants to begin the process of regularising their stay in Portuguese consulates or embassies before arriving in the country.

Twelve days later, in a letter addressed to the Secretary of State for Sport and former federative director, Pedro Dias, the Portuguese Football Federation (FPF) expressed concern about this legislative change, which was ratified by the Council of Ministers, and reminded its effects, questioning the hypothesis of "an already foreseen exception regime being used".

The Portuguese Professional Football League (LPFP) has called clubs for an urgent meeting, to analyse the Government’s proposal to resolve the problems with the new rules for foreigners.

The LPFP will present to the clubs in the I and II Leagues the set of rules that aim to mitigate the impact of the new legislation on immigration, particularly the extinction of expressions of interest, which it considers to be "severely affecting the clubs' ability to operate normally and limits the transfer of players".

As soon as the legislation was published, dated June 3rd, the LPFP stated that it had developed contacts with "the various entities with public responsibilities in the matter, in order to express concern about the adverse consequences of this change in terms of speed in players from overseas, but also to offer and request solutions that, without calling into question the assumptions recommended by the new law, would minimise the respective impact on this sector and on the clubs".

In this context, last Thursday, the Deputy Secretaries of State of the Presidency of the Council of Ministers and of Sports met, with the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the LPFP, and the federations of football, handball, basketball, skating, and volleyball.

At that meeting, "Sport demanded that its specificity and freedom to develop its activity be respected, in an agile manner, in fair and loyal competition with other stakeholders, including international ones", now says the LPFP, which considers that if the situation continues, "it will seriously harm the competitiveness and interests of Portuguese clubs".

On June 3, the Government put an end to the expression of interest in the regularization of foreigners in Portugal, a legal resource that allowed the normalisation of processes for foreigners arriving in the country on a tourist visa.

To regularise their stay, the Executive led by Luís Montenegro intends for immigrants to begin the process at Portuguese consulates and embassies before arriving in Portugal.

According to a statement released by the Superior Council, a reinforcement of resources was decided on July 9 in view of the need to “take urgent measures to reinforce the response capacity of the court, during the judicial vacation period, and ensure, during this period, the effectiveness of judicial protection of the fundamental rights of citizens who resort to it”.

After consulting judges from all administrative and tax courts, they, “overwhelmingly”, expressed their willingness to work during judicial holidays, said the Superior Council of Administrative and Tax Courts (CSTAF).

Thus, this body determined “that for the provision of the urgent service that must be carried out during the judicial holidays in relation to the 6th type processes of the Lisbon Administrative Circle Court (TAC), related to applications for residence permits, in decision phase, in the period between July 16th and August 31st, 2024, judges of law and judges of law, on internship, who expressed this availability, are included, for a total of 136 judges”.

The council refers to the “abnormal volume of service” at the TAC in Lisbon due to these specific processes, which “has been reflected in a significant backlog of cases” and that it is foreseeable that the management measures already adopted in this court “will not be sufficient to ensure the normal functioning of the summer shift”, thereby justifying the reinforcement of the number of shift judges during judicial holidays.

In accordance with the same deliberation, the cases will be randomly distributed among the selected judges.

The CSTAF also expresses “a word of praise and appreciation for the judges who made themselves available, voluntarily and with a high sense of responsibility, in order to guarantee the efficiency of this jurisdiction in defending fundamental rights”.

According to a resolution by the Council of Ministers, the Government has created a mission structure to resolve the 400,000 immigration legalization processes pending at the Agency for Integration, Migration and Asylum (AIMA), with the expectation that 300 workers can be recruited for that purpose.

The resolution authorises the recruitment of a maximum of 100 specialists, 150 technical assistants and 50 operational assistants for the two mission teams.

 

 Theportugalnews