If the President vetoes the new nationality law, there will be no immediate impact on your pending application, and it will continue to be processed under the current nationality regime. Only if and when a new law is later approved, promulgated, and published will its transitional rules determine how it applies to future applications. Now, under the Portuguese constitutional and legislative framework, a presidential veto does not equate to the rejection of a law, but rather constitutes a procedural step within the legislative process. In the case of a political veto, the President of the Republic returns the approved statute to Parliament for reconsideration. Alternatively, the President may also trigger a preventive constitutional review by the Constitutional Court. In both situations, the legal effect is that the proposed nationality law does not enter into force, as it has not yet been promulgated and published in the Diário da República. As a consequence, until the law is formally promulgated and published, it has no legal effect and cannot be applied by administrative authorities such as AIMA or the Ministry of Justice. The current Nationality Law remains fully in force and continues to govern all ongoing and future naturalisation applications. In this context, pending naturalisation applications are not suspended or placed on hold due to a legislative veto. Administrative procedures continue to be assessed and decided exclusively under the legal framework that is in force at the time of decision, unless a future law expressly provides otherwise through clear transitional provisions.
