Věra Jourová , The European Commissioner for Justice recently announced that Citizenship for sale schems to be scrutinized and a report will be published by the end of the year. In May 2018, EU Parliament asked the Member States to be careful and take possible side effects into account. It also called on the Commission to assess the schemes in the light of European values.
Financial Times reported, The EU states with “citizenship by investment” schemes include Malta and Cyprus, Austria, Greece, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania and Portugal.
The Investment Migration Council (IMC),worldwide association for investor immigration and citizenship-by-investment schemes, has responded saying CIPs account for about 0.1% of the total of new EU citizenships granted each year.
The governance, due diligence and transparency of applicants under the Citizenship-by-Investment provisions in Austria, Malta and Cyprus – the three most active countries in the EU in this field – are not a security threat to the EU, given that very strict due diligence procedures and background checks on applicants are in place in those countries.
Peter S. Vincent, Assistant Director General for International Policy at BORDERPOL and former Legal Counsel at the US Department of Justice and US Department of Homeland Security, also responded:
“I can understand and sympathize with the EU Commissioner’s concerns. However, having been exposed to the industry for a few years now, I can honestly say that as a former security and counterterrorism professional, the citizenship by investment programs of the EU are not a security threat to the European Union. In terms of commitment to governance, the very robust application process in Malta could even become the standard industry model, not just for the European Union but globally”.
Bruno L’ecuyer, the Chief Executive of the IMC, said:
“Significant time and capital is spent by professional firms and governments to ensure the tightest levels of security and background checks are carried out by European and global security agencies. Likewise, Citizenship-by-Investment applications are also vetted against current EU anti-money-laundering and financing of terrorism legislation, and must adhere to legal and regulatory obligations that individual EU states have adopted in line with EU law. It ensures the highest levels of corporate governance and due diligence is in place to prevent any security concerns.
