EU warns of crime risks from governments' sales of passports, visas
| EU warns of crime risks from governments' sales of passports, visas |
FILE PHOTO: European Justice, Consumers and Gender Equality Commissioner Vera Jourova speaks during an interview with Reuters at the EU Commission headquarters in Brussels, Belgium, September 11, 2017. REUTERS/Francois Lenoir/File Photo
The warning is contained in the EU executive’s first report on the multi-billion-dollar industry of so-called “investment migration”, which allows rich individuals to buy citizenship or residence in countries that put them on sale.
Although legal, these schemes are sometimes run in opaque ways and without sufficient checks on those who acquire passports and visas, the Commission said, mostly raising concerns about the programs in Malta and Cyprus.
Brussels warned of risks for the entire EU as passports and residence permits issued by one country of the 28-nation bloc give unhindered access to most other member states.
This causes “possible security risks such as money laundering, terrorist financing, corruption and infiltration of organized crime,” the Commission said, confirming a Reuters story earlier this week.
Malta, Cyprus and Bulgaria are the only EU countries which sell their citizenship, issuing “golden passports” in return for investments ranging between around 1 million and 2 million euros ($2.2 million).
Twenty EU states, including those three, sell residence permits, or “golden visas”, to foreigners willing to invest in their new host country, with a range of between nearly 15,000 euros ($17,000) in Croatia and over 5 million euros in Luxembourg and Slovakia.
Bulgaria, which is not part of the EU’s border-free Schengen area, said on Tuesday it would halt its passport-selling program.
Cypriot President Nicos Anastasiades accused Brussels of “double standards”, saying Cyprus was being unfairly targeted and that it applied the “strictest criteria” for such schemes in the EU.
The Maltese government said it had already addressed many of the concerns raised by the Commission.
Henley & Partners, the firm which set up Malta’s scheme, said the Commission assessment was “fundamentally misguided” and that it ignored the economic benefits of the program.
I think this kind of ways are long time works on some of those people on the immigration's just right know that they been exposed. That some corrupt official can manipulate or get your Visa approve as long as you pay the amount the needed to work on it in under the table transaction direct to there pocket.
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