Portuguese Language Orthographic Agreement of 1990 - Enacting

Enacting

This spelling reform was meant to go into effect after all signatory countries had ratified it, but at the end of the decade only Brazil, Cape Verde, and Portugal had done so, so the agreement could not go into effect.

At the July 2004 summit of the Community of Portuguese Language Countries (including East Timor), São Tomé and Príncipe ratified the agreement, and a modification was made to the text, allowing the reform to go forward in those countries which had already ratified it, and accepting the official orthographies in the other countries as legitimate in the meantime; however, this was to happen after a transition period which was not defined.

The old orthographies continue to predominate in their respective countries until ratification of the 1990 Agreement. Brazil changed on January 1, 2009.

The changes were accepted by Equatorial Guinea, which adopted Portuguese as one of its official languages on July 13, 2007.

In Portugal the change was signed into law on July 21, 2008 by the President allowing for a 6-year transitional period, during which both orthographies will co-exist. On January 1, 2012 the government adopted the spelling reform in official documents and in the Diário da República. Adoption in the independent press is not yet fully implemented: of the ten most sold newspapers, three have not done so yet, although all television networks and most of the publishers adopted the reform promptly long before the deadline.