RIO DE JANEIRO, BRAZIL – In 2020, Brazilians once again topped the list of applicants granted authorization to live in the country by the Portuguese government. Preliminary data provided by the Portuguese Foreigners and Borders Service (SEF) show that, of 117,500 new residence permits issued last year, 41,990 were granted to Brazilians.
In second place, with 13,160 applications – are citizens of the United Kingdom, which officially left the European Union in January 2020. Next are Indians, with 7,017 requests, Angolans, with 4,820, and Italians, with 4,480.
Applications for new residence permits from Brazilians represent about 36% of the total so far. For the time being, it is a lower total than the 48.790 permits granted to Brazilians in 2019 – before Portugal was impacted by the crisis resulting from the Covid-19 pandemic that, according to the National Statistics Institute (INE), led the Gross Domestic Product (GDP) to shrink 7.6% over the past year. Nevertheless, the result shows that despite the crisis, many Brazilians are still choosing to live in Portugal.
For ex-teacher Pâmela Fumagalli Machado da Silveira, 38 years old, safety and the climate weighed heavily on her decision to move from Primavera do Leste (MT) to Barreiro, about 40 kilometers from Lisbon. Although she has Italian citizenship – which makes it easier for her, her husband, and their two children, ages 18 and 10, to enter any country in the European Community – Pâmela and her family chose Portugal. They moved in November 2019, after being granted a residence permit. And at first they faced some of the hurdles that most immigrants experience, despite being in a legal situation.
“In Brazil I taught in private schools and my husband worked in Information Technology [IT]. Here, in the first months, we had to work in restaurants, in very hard jobs. Now, my husband has already found a job in his sector, but I am working with sewing and handicrafts which, fortunately, are things I have always liked,” said Pâmela, assuring that the family does not regret their decision.
“We had been planning to move for some years. We chose Portugal because of the quality of life, because we knew that this is not a country for making money, but one that offers safety and, because it welcomes many immigrants, is more receptive than others in Europe. In addition, for us Brazilians, there is the ease of the language,” recalled the Brazilian, adding that there is also another aspect, of adversity and challenges, which has intensified with the pandemic.
“I don’t know people who have decided to return to Brazil, but I know people who say they are considering doing so, who say they are at their limit. Those who work from home, like my husband and I, are keeping up. We have been virtually locked up at home for months. Those who work in restaurants, bars, clubs, in many of the services that employ foreigners, are not working. Everything is closed,” said Pâmela, stating that, despite everything, her family is not thinking of returning. “I think we are in a good place. And, in social networks, we see that there are many Brazilians wanting to come here.”
Community
In addition to being part of the group that most applied for new residence visas during the past year, Brazilians are a majority among the foreigners living in Lusitanian lands. In 2020, according to the Foreigners and Borders Service, of the 661,000 non-citizens registered, 183,830 had come from Brazil. Next are people from the United Kingdom (46,270); Cape Verde (36,600); Romania (30,060) and Ukraine (28,610).
Data from the United Nations International Organization for Migration (IOM) show that by mid-2020 there were at least 1 million immigrants living in Portugal – which would represent 9.8% of the country’s 10.2 million inhabitants. However, according to experts, these numbers may be underestimated and do not reflect the real number of immigrants.
Born in São Paulo, journalist Jair Rattner has lived in Portugal for 35 years, where he contributes to several media outlets. In his opinion, despite the Brazilian instability contributing to making Portugal attractive to many Brazilians like Pâmela, the challenges arising from the pandemic that Portugal is experiencing have been driving people to return to their countries of origin.
“The impact of the crisis is felt more by foreigners who were already in Portugal and faced with the difficulty in finding work, return to their countries, than among those who continue to come in search of better conditions,” believes the journalist.
“There are many people unemployed and, for now, the Portuguese economy is unable to absorb more people. When someone decides to leave their country, they don’t think about this. They are influenced more by the reports they hear than by an assessment of the real socioeconomic situation,” said Rattner.
According to the National Statistics Institute (INE), Portugal closed 2020 with an official unemployment rate of 6.9% – and among working-age women, the percentage reached 7.1%.
Source: Agencia Brasil