Places of Portugal: Lisbon

Centre of Lisbon from the top of Santa Justa Lift by Larissa Bona

Lisbon is the capital of Portugal and its largest city with a population of almost 3 million people (Metropolitan Area of Lisbon). Placed at the mouth of the Tagus River, it is the westernmost capital of continental Europe.

Although there is a legend saying that Lisbon was founded by Ulysses, Lisbon was founded by the Phoenicians. In 711, the city was taken by the Moors, who ruled the city for 450 years until the 12^th Century, when the Christians recovered the city. Yet, the Arabic influence is still seen nowadays on the architecture of the city.

With the Age of Discovery, Portugal has become one of the most powerful nations of that time; consequently, Lisbon has become one of the most important cities in Europe.

In 1755, an earthquake destroyed the city centre and the city was rebuilt by the 1^st Marques of Pombal, who demolished everything that was left and reconstructed the area according to the modern urban style, creating an area called the “Baixa Pombalina”, which still remains much of its original layout.

Actually, the architecture of Lisbon is one of its best assets, since there you can find several styles as Romanesque, Gothic, Manueline, Baroque, Traditional Portuguese, Modern and Post-Modern coexisting.

The city also hosts several museums that are worthy to visit as Museum of the Portuguese Style-Tile, Calouste Gulbekian Museum, and Lisbon Oceanarium.

Besides this, there are several monuments as Padrão do Descobrimento (a monument built to honour the sailors who faced challenged the oceans), Torre de Belém, Jeronimos Monastery, all placed in the neighbourhood of Belem, in which you can also eat the famous Pastel de Belem.

In 1998, Lisbon hosted the Expo ´98, hence, built a brand new and modern space called Parque das Nações that, after the event finished, has become a multipurpose space. As you can see, there is a lot to do in Lisbon during the day.

In the Historic Centre of Lisbon, you can find the famous neighbourhoods of Alfama, Baixa, Chiado, Bairro Alto, where the best of the nightlife of Lisbon is placed, including the famous "Casas de Fado", which are restaurants where you can eat a proper Portuguese cod-fish, drinking a genuine Portuguese wine, whilst seeing a Fado show. (I’ve already done this and I guarantee that it’s an excellent experience).

My advice is: visit Lisbon, you won’t be disappointed.

Larissa Bona

Why Should Someone Obtain the Portuguese Citizenship? - Part III: To Not Let the Chain Break

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Larissa Bona

Why Should Someone Obtain the Portuguese Citizenship? - Part II: The European Citizenship

Contacts: 

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Larissa Bona

Portugal & Qatar - A Re-New Beginning

Source: nuqataropen.wordpress.com

Qatar, a small peninsula in the Gulf, has now become a major international player in the World Market, setting new bench marks in fields of lnnovation, Infrastructure development, LNG, Education and Sports.

With Qatar bidding for the prestigious World Cup 2022, it becomes imperative that this jewel in the pearl of the Gulf has reached new governments to invest in Qatar as the destination of the world.

On a maiden visit to Lisbon in the summers of April 2009, HH Emir of Qatar Sheikh Hamad Bin Khalifa Al Thani and Her Royal Consort Sheikha Mozah with the accompanying delegation held official round talks with the Portuguese Prime Minister Jose Socrates and accompanying delegation Minister of State and Foreign Minister Luis Amado, Minister of State and Finance Minister Fernando Teixeira dos Santos and Minister of Economy and lnnovation Manuel Pinho.

A joint statement, agreement and the MoU were signed for Qatar by Minister of Business and Trade H.E. Sheikh Fahad bin Jassem Bin Mohammad Al-Abdurrahman AL-Thani and for Portugal, the Minister of State and Foreign Minister Luis Amado.

A major boost of co-operations signed between the two friendly countries in May 2010 with HE the Premier of Qatar and Portugal Foreign Minister Luis Amado signed an agreement between both the governments on the cancellation of entry visa for holder of diplomatic and special passports. A protocol of co-operation and joint news exchange was also signed.

Recently on 24 October 2010 Qatar welcomed the arrival of Portuguese Minister of Economy and Innovation Jose Vieira da Silva led by a 15 member delegation held bilateral co-operation in sectors as Banking and Finance, Tourism, Telecommunication and Energy. Portugal famed for its historical tourism is also on the anvil which chips in 11% of Portugal's GDP.

It's hoped Qatar takes this promotion in investing in resorts and hotels in Portugal, adding to economic co-operation including Protection of investment and other instruments to be finalized before end of 2010.

According to Mr. da Silva, the time is right for both countries to move beyond government-level relationship to – where company to company partnership can be created.

Portugal is also interested in importing Qatari LNG and a deep sea harbour is currently being developed to receive supplies.

No links can be possible without flight services and therefore, Qatar Airways, currently ruling the skies in being of the most prestigious airline in the world, is also in negotiating to have direct flight between Doha and Lisbon, once all technical issues are completed.

On a closing note, the former deputy PM of Portugal and chairman of Friendship Association Portugal-Qatar Jose Luis Arnaut said, "any relationship between Qatar and Portugal will be a win-win opportunity for both countries.

With the Portuguese Goan community increasing in Middle East, its hoped that the Portuguese authorities may setup a permanent Cultural office in Qatar with facilities of issuing Passports and legal support making it a one stop destination barring restrictions and simple efficient single window system.

Bonding a partnership with Miguel Reis Associados, the proximity between Europe and the Middle East is as close to a mouse click away to help fellow Goan brethren to claim their right of Portuguese Citizenship.

Anthony Peter D'Souza¹

Doha - Qatar

[1] Mr. Anthony Peter D'Souza is a Portuguese citizen of Goan descent, member of the Portuguese community in Qatar and our partner in that country.

Who Is Entitled to the Portuguese Citizenship?

Source: arrastao.org

Every day I receive several e-mails with a very similar content. The person usually begins telling his/her case and then ends up with the "golden question": Am I entitled to the Portuguese citizenship?

Therefore, in today’s post I will answer the “golden question” of most of my clients. Below, those who are entitled to the Portuguese citizenship:

• Children of either Portuguese parents;
• Grandchildren of at least one Portuguese citizen;
• Great grandchildren of at least one Portuguese citizen;
• Spouses of Portuguese citizens, married to them for over 3 years;
•  Women that got married to Portuguese citizens before 1981;
• Civil partners of Portuguese citizens, whose civil union has over 3 years;
• Persons born in the Old Portuguese State of India;
• Persons born in the former Portuguese colonies in Africa, before their independence;
• Persons born in Macau during the Portuguese administration;
• Persons born in East Timor until 1981;
• Stateless persons born in Portugal;
• Those who had lost the Portuguese citizenship;
• Children of foreign citizens, born in the Portuguese territory, whose at least one of the foreign parents is settled in Portugal;
• Children of foreign citizens, born in the Portuguese territory, who lived permanently for 10 years prior to the submission of the application;
• Foreign citizens who are legally settled down in Portugal for at least 6 years.

Remember that the information above is summed up and not sufficient to establish if someone is really entitled to the Portuguese citizenship, because there are some legal requirements that must be met in addition to what is mentioned above.

Consequently, I warn you that the situations above-listed must be faced as just a hint of who may be entitled to the citizenship.

But you should not be worried because I will discuss every single case further on.

Larissa Bona

Portugal: a Country that Has Changed the World

Source: Video posted on Youtube by user jocamar15 (click here to access his page)

I saw this video on Youtube and thought it would be perfect to introduce our new series: History of Portugal.

The Portuguese history has over 2000 years and it is impossible to tell it in a very detailed manner here. Yet, I think it would be nice for the readers to know a little bit more about the history of their ancestors, because Portugal, indeed, was a country that has changed the world, as the title of the video says.

Therefore, I will try to tell a summed up history of Portugal in this blog, not through a deep approach, but listing all relevant events, every 15 days (I do similar thing at Olhar Direito blog, in which I write about the History of Brazil, but in Portuguese and in a more detailed way).

Larissa Bona

Why should someone obtain the Portuguese Citizenship? - Part I: The Portuguese Heritage

Due to technical problems, it was not possible to publish yesterday's post. We apologise for that and inform that such post will be published next Sunday.

Larissa Bona 

Migration

Source: criterionglobal.wordpress.com

Today, I will talk about migration because citizenship and migration are subjects that walk together holding hands, since migration laws always observe the citizenship aspect of the nations, therefore, it is almost impossible to think of them separately.

Besides a lawyer, I am also an International Law scholar and these subjects, along with Human Rights, are my study speciality.

I have already published some articles and two monographies approaching these themes and for this reason I will also use this space to talk about migration, every Saturday, continuing to use easy and simple language with the purpose of not only spreading information, but also to make myself understood for anyone.

Taking this into account, I will begin talking about Portuguese and Brazilian Migration, which are those I have more experience, yet I will try to explain a little bit of the migration rules from other countries as the USA, Canada, the UK and others.

But before analysing the migration laws of each of the above mentioned countries, I will speak a little bit about the concept and history of migration. Below, I provide you some extracts of my work “Laws against illegal migration and Human Rights violation. The case of the Directive Return and Arizona SB 1070”:

Migration is the movement of entrance (immigration) or exit (emigration) of a person or group of persons, usually seeking better life conditions.

I must highlight that migration is not something new, but something as ancient as humankind, once before achieving the “status” of “homo sapiens”, the human beings were already migrating from one side to the other of the globe seeking places which were more favourable to their survival.

Today it is estimated that there are around 214 million migrants in the world. The continent that hosts the biggest amount of migrants is Europe, with around 69.8 million, and the country that individually hosts more migrants is the USA (around 42.8 millions).

According to the International Organization for Migration, this is a phenomenon that reaches not only Europe and the USA, but all countries of the world. This organization also mentions that around 10% to 15% of the migrants are illegal aliens.

Larissa Bona

Tomorrow: Brazil

Portugal & the European Union

Source: Unknown

After the World War II, Europe found itself completely destroyed by the bloody conflict that took place in its territory.

It was obvious that the European countries needed to be reconstructed, but there was also the trauma of the war and the fear for further conflicts.

Despite of the fact the USA was helping with the Marshall Plan, the European nations knew that they could only avoid further conflicts and not being so vulnerable to the American control if they united themselves.

Therefore, Germany, Belgium, France, Italy, Luxembourg and Netherlands, signed the Treaty of Paris creating the European Coal and Steel Community (ECSC) in 1951. This was the first step for integration of Europe and the beginning of the European Union.

In 1957, the Treaty of Rome created the European Economic Community (EEC), that is, the Common Market was established, besides creating the European Atomic Energy Community (EURATOM) and extending the cooperation period of the ECSC.

In 1965, the Treaty of Brussels, also known as the Merger Treaty, transformed these three communities into one, called the European Community. This treaty also established the European Parliamentary Assembly and the European Council.

In the 70’s, Denmark, Ireland and the UK joined the European Community and, for the first time, direct democratic elections were held to choose the members of the European Parliament.

In 1986, along with Spain, Portugal joined the European Community and, in 1993, due to the Maastricht Treaty, also known as Treaty on European Union, signed in the previous year, the European Union was created, converting the economic union of the European countries into political union.

The biggest accomplishment of this treaty was the creation of something bigger than just an international organisation, because the European Union is the first and only supranational organisation in the world, whose rules legally bind all citizens of the Member States. And why this happens?

The Article 8.1 of the above mentioned treaty establishes the citizenship of the European Union and also determines that “Every person holding the nationality of a Member State shall be a citizen of the Union”.

Besides this, the Article 8a.1 says that “Every citizen of the Union shall have right to move and reside freely within the territory of the Member States...”.

Thus, considering that Portugal is a Member State since 1986, we can come to the conclusion that all Portuguese Citizens are also European Citizens, which means they all have right to move and settle in any country of the EU.

Summing up, holding the Portuguese Citizenship besides an honour, it is also a very good deal.

Larissa Bona

Tomorrow: Migration

The Portuguese Communities

Source: stormfront.org 

As I have spoken previously, Portugal is well known for being the pioneer in the Age of Discovery and for having created the first global empire of history by colonising several territories, which most of people do not even have a clue that were Portuguese territories in the past, and I include myself in this bundle.

When I was researching to write this post, I found out places that were Portuguese territories that I have never imagined they were once occupied by Portugal as Bahrain, enclaves in Indonesia, Mombasa in Kenya, and Nagasaki in Japan!

I have even found out that the Japanese vocabulary has been influenced by the Portuguese idiom! This is really surprising.

Indeed, seven of the territories that once were Portuguese colonies have become countries (Angola, Brazil, Cape Verde, Guinea Bissau, Mozambique, Sao Tome and Principe and East Timor) and have created, along with Portugal, the Community of the Portuguese Speaking Countries (Comunidade dos Países de Língua Portuguesa – CPLP), which is an international organisation that aims to promote economic and cultural interchange among these countries.

Besides these countries, I would like to highlight the Portuguese communities in India (Goa, Daman and Diu) and in China (Macau), which still have a very expressive number of members who are entitled to the Portuguese citizenship.

The Portuguese people are innate sailors and their adventure spirit have made them travel around the globe and not only populate their own colonies, but also to settle down in several countries like the USA, France, South Africa, Canada, Switzerland, Germany, Spain, Australia, Luxemburg, Belgium, Hong Kong, Netherlands, Andorra, Italy, Bermudas, Zimbabwe, Sweden, Uruguay, Morocco and others.

Personally, I think this is the quality of the Portuguese people that I admire the most because, despite of the fact they come from a very small country, they were able to spread and build their own history in almost every country of the world, without forgetting their roots. You should all be very proud of it.

And I think it is important to talk about the Portuguese communities because they are those who carry the Portuguese blood and, consequently, those who are interested the most in the content of this blog.

Actually, every Thursday will talk about the Portuguese communities around the world. And I take the chance to invite all readers to contribute to this blog by sending texts, about the Portuguese community they are part of, to be published here.

So, if you want to participate, please, send an e-mail to larissa.bona@lawrei.com (put Portuguese Community on the subject) and it will be my pleasure publish your text, because I believe that no one rather than community members themselves have the authority to talk about and promote their own communities.

Larissa Bona

Tomorrow: Portugal & the European Union

The Portuguese Citizenship

Source: Wikipedia

According to the Oxford Dictionary, citizenship is “the position or status of being a citizen of a particular country”.

Taking this into account, we can easily come to the conclusion that the Portuguese citizenship is “the position or status” of being a citizen of Portugal.

But then we are led to others questions, which at first sight are not so easy to answer: who are the Portuguese citizens? Which is the criterion used to establish that someone is a Portuguese citizen? And to answer them, we have to go through some legal concepts.

International law scholars have realised that the countries use two basic rules to establish who their citizens are: jus soli or jus sanguinis.

Jus soli is a Latin expression that means “right of soil” and in accordance with this rule, someone is a citizen of a country because this person was born in its territory. For example: the USA considers all those who are born in the American territory as American citizens.

Now, jus sanguinis is a Latin expression that means “right of blood” and this rule says that someone will be considered a citizen of a country only if his/her parents are also citizens of such country. For example: someone who is child of a German parent, will be a German citizen, independently of the country he/she was born.

So, once explained the criteria for the establishment of citizenships, we go to the next question: which of these rules is adopted by Portugal?

Until 1981, under the terms of the previous Nationality Act (Law nº 2098/1959), Portugal used to adopt the rule of jus soli to establish citizenship, that is, all those born in the Portuguese territory were considered Portuguese citizens.

However, in 1981, with the new Nationality Act (Law nº 37/1981), Portugal started to adopt the jus sanguinis as main rule to establish the citizenship.

Therefore, I may roughly say that today the Portuguese citizens are those who have Portuguese blood and the exceptions to this rule we will see further on.

Larissa Bona

Observation: The Portuguese Citizenship is currently ruled by several legislations. The most relevant are: 

- The Portuguese Nationality Act (Law nº 37/1981, of 3^rd October);

- The Portuguese Nationality Statute (Decree-Law nº 237-A/2006, of 14^th December); 

- The Portuguese Civil Registration Code;

- European Convention on Nationality (Strasbourg, 6 XI 1997)

Tomorrow: The Portuguese Communities

Portugal

Source: Portuguese Embassy in Japan

Before going through the Portuguese citizenship, I thought it is important to talk about Portugal, not only to allow the readers to learn a little bit about the country of their ancestors, but also to make them understand why obtaining the Portuguese citizenship is important.

Actually, every Tuesday, I will write a little bit about Portugal, so people can have contact with the Portuguese culture, history, politics and everything else that is interesting to know about this small but wonderful country. So, here I go:

Portugal is officially called the Portuguese Republic (República Portuguesa in Portuguese) and is located in the Iberian Peninsula, sharing borders with Spain (east and north) and the Atlantic Ocean (west and south).

Besides this territory, whose rectangular shape has originated the nickname “the European Rectangle” often used by the Portuguese people to refer to their own country, Portugal also comprises the archipelagos of the Azores and Madeira, both located in northern Atlantic Ocean.

Historically, Portugal is famous for being the nation who started the Age of Discovery, since the Portuguese people were the first to explore sailing routes to reach India through the Atlantic Coast of Africa, triggering the naval run that resulted in the discovery of America and Oceania.

The Portuguese, which is how the nationals of Portugal are called, have not only established the new route to India by contouring the Coast of Africa, under the lead of Vasco da Gama, but have also colonised several territories in Africa, Asia and South America, creating the Portuguese Empire, which was the first global empire and the longest-lived of the modern European colonial empires, with almost six centuries of ruling.

Today, Portugal is a democratic parliamentary republic, having a president who is the head of state, elected for a five-year term renewable once (the current Portuguese president is Aníbal Cavaco Silva) and a prime-minister, who is the chief of government, nominated by the president – usually the leader of the party that gets more seats in the parliament – for a four year term that can be indefinitely renewed (the current prime-minister is José Sócrates).

The Portuguese population is of about 10 million inhabitants and around 3 million of them live in the metropolitan area of Lisbon, which is the capital of Portugal. Its official idiom is Portuguese, which is a language derived from Latin and believed to be the 5^th most spoken idiom in the world, with estimated 260 million speakers.

Since 1986, Portugal, which is the birth nation of names as Luis de Camões, Fernando Pessoa, José Saramago, Amália Rodrigues, Cristiano Ronaldo, José Mourinho and others, is one of the 27 members of the European Union and the current president of the European Commission is the Portuguese citizen, Durão Barroso.

Larissa Bona

Tomorrow: The Portuguese Citizenship

Portuguese Citizenship - Easy and Simple Information about Portuguese Citizenship & Immigration

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Twitter: www.twitter.com/larissa_bona

Youtube Channel: www.youtube.com/lmbona

Larissa Bona