The Portuguese Central Registry Office was pressured to apply urgency and priority to the process of the Russian millionaire, Roma Abramovich, for his naturalization as a citizen of the country of the fines.

The pressure on Portugal had been put by the Israeli Community of Porto (CIP), but it also seems that there was an interest from the Portuguese Government.

A Portuguese portal writes: "in an e-mail sent on February 3, 2021 to Maria de Lurdes Serrano, Director of the Central Registry Office, the Israeli Community of Porto invoked reasons of national interest involving the Government itself to ask that the Russian process be considered a priority.

The process of granting Portuguese nationality to the multimillionaire entered the Central Registries on October 14, 2020 and, until February of the following year, did not register any proceedings, since the central service of the Institute of Registries and Notaries had received tens of thousands of identical requests under the Nationality Law for descendants of Sephardic Jews, expelled from Portugal from the end of the 15th century.

CIP's management then decided to request in that e-mail - for which it requested confidentiality - that a "declaration of urgency" be issued for that process or, alternatively, that it be transferred to the Oporto Registrar's Office where, according to CIP, processing would take about 10 months, as opposed to Lisbon, where it could take up to 30 months.

The Director of the Central Registry Office, who has since been subject to disciplinary proceedings, replied to CIP's e-mail assuring that Abramovich's request would not take more than ten months to be concluded and determined that the process was now urgent. Abramovich's naturalization request was eventually granted on April 13 by the former Secretary of State for Justice, Anabela Pedroso, and he was granted Portuguese nationality on April 30, less than three months after the e-mail was sent by the Jewish community in Porto.