Cyprus President Nicos Anastasiades on Wednesday defended his government’s citizenship-for-investment programme following criticism by members of the European Parliament, during the debate on the Future of Europe.
The President replied to questions by MEPs on the Cyprus problem, the Government’s economic policy and Cyprus’ Investment Programme.
Anastasiades said that Cyprus has been targeted regarding its Investment Programme, in the framework of which non–Cypriot entrepreneurs, investors and members of their families are granted Cypriot citizenship under specific criteria and terms.
He stressed that over the last five years Cyprus has granted citizenship to no more than 4,700 persons, a number that corresponds to 0.3% of the total number of citizenships granted by the other members of the EU. He noted that the Government has introduced criteria and has been scrutinised by Moneyval, the Council of Europe’s monitoring mechanism in the fight against money laundering and the financing of terrorism.
This also means, taking into account 4700 limit, on an average Cyprus granted citizenship to only 950 persons per year during the last five years under the citizenship by investment scheme.
A total of 3,336 investors mostly from Asia, Europe and Arab countries obtained cyprus citizenship/passport through investment scheme between 2014 to 2018. The scheme has raised more than €6.5 billion euros investment into Cyprus.
Cyprus currently requires €2 million property investment for acquisition of citizenship through investment scheme. As a part of new 2018 amendments, the Cyprus investment scheme is limited to 700 applications per year.
As of Dec, 2018, there are 453 citizenship service providers in Cyprus, authorized for promotion of citizenship scheme by the Ministry of Interior.
What is MONEYVAL?
MONEYVAL is a permanent monitoring body of the Council of Europe entrusted with the task of assessing compliance with the principal international standards to counter money laundering and the financing of terrorism and the effectiveness of their implementation, as well as with the task of making recommendations to national authorities in respect of necessary improvements to their systems. Through a dynamic process of mutual evaluations, peer review and regular follow-up of its reports, MONEYVAL aims to improve the capacities of national authorities to fight money laundering and the financing of terrorism more effectively. MONEYVAL (formerly PC-R-EV) was established in 1997 and its functioning was regulated by the general provisions of Resolution Res(2005)47 on committees and subordinate bodies,
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