The Former Maltese Prime Minister and MEP Alfred Sant told Labour voters that the European Commission has no power to force Malta to drop its citizenship-by-investment programme, Malta Today reported .
His comments come in the wake of a report by MEPs from the TAX 3 committee, which will call on the European Parliament to ask Brussels to take away member states’ golden visa programmes.
“The EU has no powers granted by the European treaties to oversee the Maltese Citizen by Investment programme. Malta’s success has fuelled unjust attacks – supported by PN MEPs – on Malta and Cyprus in the European Parliament, two of the EU’s smallest member states.
“Other European countries have been granting EU citizenship to non-EU nationals for obscure and unpublicised reasons, with no accountability at all at a European level. No one ever criticised them in the European Parliament for this practice,” Sant said
Sant pledged to continue to campaign in favour of a Europe of independent and sovereign nation states, as opposed to a federal Europe that would dictate member states’ policies from Brussels.
Malta currently offers citizenship through Individual investor program (IIP) to rich foreigners for close to $1 million invested in Malta. This scheme was announced in 2013. Official figures show, Malta receives 300 applications every year, and as of June 2018, , Malta only approved less than 1000 IIP applications, precisely 960 according to ORiip report. The initial proposed quota was 1500 applications.
About one in five applications were being refused for failing checks and no passports have been revoked issued under IIP scheme the report claimed.
Malta publishes annual report of IIP every year including publishing of names of all citizens in Gazette. Ever year ORiip report is also published describing transparent process of due diligence and vetting.
EU has repeatedly criticized Malta for granting citizenships without genuine link. Malta imposes one year of residence requirement as genuine link criteria and also taking oath, before being of approved of citizenship. The regulatory report show Malta analyzes genuine link criteria such as charity donations, paying taxes, frequent visits to country.
Malta’s due diligence standard is often considered as a text book example and often regarded as gold standard in the CBI industry.
The recently released EU report published by the commission said, three member states Malta, Bulgaria, Cyprus grant ‘golden passports’ through investor citizenship schemes.
Cyprus, owing to pressure from Brussels, last month tightening its citizenship scheme, imposed schengen visa requirement, requiring first vetted by member states before being granted citizenship. Last year Cyprus cut the citizenship quota to 700 passports for investment. Cyprus finance minister announced 1864 citizenships were issued since the start of citizenship scheme.
Bulgaria also on the other hand announced tightening of measures for citizenship, and proposed closing of golden visa and citizenship scheme, not because of EU pressure, but because of lack of interest in the scheme, and low volume of applications. Official reports show Bulgaria approved citizenship for 29 investors for investment under fast track in 2018. Bulgaria granted in total a small number of 45 citizenships in exchange for investments.
The total citizenships granted by 3 member states combined is 2,869 investors which is less than 3000, which is infinitely small compared to member states granting citizenship to 1 million people in 2016.
- Cyprus – 1864
- Malta – 960
- Bulgaria – 45
EU has faced criticism from industry and also caribbean states for the bullying of small countries for running citizenship and residence schemes in exchange for investment.
