Parliament Backs a New Statute for Portugal's Fertility Regulator That Would Make Its Say on New Clinics Binding
A PSD bill giving the fertility council CNPMA its own statute, staff and budget passed its first reading with no votes against. It goes to the Health Committee next and is not yet law.
Portugal's parliament on Friday approved in principle a new statute for the Conselho Nacional de Procriação Medicamente Assistida (National Council for Medically Assisted Procreation, CNPMA), which sets the rules for fertility clinics and oversees them. The bill, Projeto de Lei n.º 623/XVII/1.ª, was tabled by the governing PSD in May. It passed its first-reading vote with no votes against, while the PS, Livre, PCP, BE, PAN and JPP abstained, according to Lusa, as reported by RTP. It now goes to parliament's Health Committee, so it is not yet law.
What the bill changes
The council already exists under Lei n.º 32/2006, the assisted reproduction law, which governs it in four short articles. The bill replaces them with a 24-article statute. Much of it restates powers the council already has, from setting the conditions clinics must meet to keeping the national register of donors, patients and children born.
Some changes are real. The council's opinion on authorising a new clinic, or a new embryonic stem cell bank, would become binding, and it would propose the suspension or withdrawal of a clinic's authorisation rather than only give a view on it. It could issue binding instructions to the clinics it regulates. It would become an independent administrative entity with its own legal personality and "powers of authority", answering to no minister, and its members could not be removed before the end of their five-year terms except through death, incapacity or resignation.
The council would also get its own permanent staff (seven posts are listed), its own line in parliament's budget, and income from fees for opinions and certificates and a share of fines. It names the health regulator ERS, the health inspectorate IGAS, the DGS and the SNS executive among the bodies that must cooperate with it.
The bill leaves the law's criminal and administrative sanctions untouched, and it adds no specific powers for a clinic that shuts suddenly. A Livre resolution asking the government for exactly that was rejected on Friday. The current law's register covers surrogate mothers; the new list of duties does not mention them, which the Socialist deputy Elza Pais criticised in the debate, RTP reported.
Why now, and what it means for patients
The PSD argues that the council's structure never kept pace with the duties national and EU law have given it over 20 years. A near-identical PSD bill passed its first reading in 2024 but lapsed when the previous legislature ended in June 2025. This one comes after a Cascais fertility clinic closed without warning at the end of August, and after the council warned in September of a four-year wait at the public donor bank.
For patients, the bill changes no rule on who may be treated or what treatment costs. Its effect would be a regulator with more staff and a firmer say over which clinics open. Deputies also approved a Chega resolution, which has no force of law, recommending that the government expand fertility treatment in the SNS and the public gamete bank, with a median wait of 90 days for a first appointment and 180 days to the start of a first treatment cycle.
Next steps
The Health Committee will now go through the bill article by article before a final vote in the full chamber. Parliament's technical note says the public consultation on the text stays open until that detailed vote begins. If the bill passes, it goes to the President for promulgation and takes effect on the first day of the second month after publication in the Diário da República.
