Opinion by World Citizenship Council (WCC)
worldcitizenshipcouncil.org
The European Commission has released a new report on investor citizenship and residence schemes and has issued several recommendations to tighten the CBI/RBI schemes.
The World Citizenship Council recommends the industry which consists of agents, governments and CIUs to take the report recommendations seriously and commit to improve the Citizenship and residence by investment (CRBI) schemes to the best of the standards.
1. Visa waiver suspension
The EC report warns of termination/suspension of visa waiver of countries running CIP’s must carry out security and background checks of applicants for citizenship schemes to the highest possible standards; any failures in this regard could be grounds for re-imposing a visa requirement and suspending or terminating visa waiver agreements.
Some third countries, or the contractors supporting them, have explicitly marketed their citizenship with the argument that it gives visa-free access to the European Union.
The Commission also said it will monitor the impact of investor citizenship schemes implemented by visa-free countries as part of the visa-suspension mechanism through a watchdog.
WCC recommends CIP/CBI countries to scrutinize each and every application seriously as one faulty CBI application could compromise the visa waiver agreement with EU and will lead to the collapse of the CBI industry. In the previous years, St Kitts and Antigua already lost visa waivers with Canada which lead to significant loss in CBI revenues and decline in applications. Preserving visa waiver is currently the the utmost importance of the CBI industry.
2. CBI Data Sharing
The report also mentions member States currently do not consult each other on applicants for investor citizenship. a lack of coordination and commonly agreed criteria leaves room for “shopping around” for the most lenient conditions. An applicant refused citizenship in one territory can make a fresh request in another Member State. Member States currently do not inform each other of rejected applicants, not even of those rejected for posing a security risk.
WCC recommends governments to urgently setup an international CBI monitoring committee with members from 11 countries, that will advise data sharing, refusals, policy making and effective communication between the CIU’s to prevent security risks and abuses by applicants. Currently there are 11 CBI/CIP schemes running in St Kitts, Antigua, Dominica, Grenada, St Lucia, Malta, Cyprus, Vanuatu, Turkey, Moldova, Montenegro
3. Enhanced Due Diligence
The report calls for member states to devote particular attention to enhanced customer due diligence in the context of investor citizenship and residence schemes. CIP’s running in candidate countries expected to have very robust monitoring systems in place, including systems to counter possible security risks such as money laundering, terrorist financing, corruption and infiltration of organised crime linked to any such schemes.
WCC also recommends the industry experts to make attention these matters seriously and comply with EU rules
The full EU report can be read or downloaded here
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