Portuguese Government to open Citizens Space in London

The Portuguese Government is to widen the number of “citizens spaces” at its overseas consulates with services in London and Brussels.

The Secretary of State for the Portuguese Communities, José Luís Carneiro, announced at the International Club of Lisbon on Tuesday that the new services areas would offer more services for Portuguese citizens living in the UK and Belgium.

A similar scheme was launched in Paris and São Paulo. The measure will be good news for Portuguese businesses and citizens operating within the UK.

“These spaces will mean that Portuguese public administrative services from 10 different State departments can be made available at consulates overseas.”

Matters that today are dealt with in Portugal, where you had to have a procurator to ensure access to a Portuguese public administrative service will now be available in these “Citizens Spaces”.

It means that many of the services one carried out at notaries or citizens shops in Portugal can now be done overseas at consulates just as they would be done in Portugal.

Last year the Citizens Spaces in São Paulo and Paris dealt with around 400,000 consular and administrative measures, applications and procedures.

The Citizens Space has been created as part of a modernisation policy at Portuguese consulates.

Another innovation from the government will be a single subscription procedure at consulates.

“It means that each Portuguese citizen who moves to a different consular jurisdiction (i.e. to another country) only has to sign up once and not every time they move overseas to another jurisdiction since they will carry a unique number common and accepted to all.”