EU Commission Seeks to Make “Investor Citizenship Schemes” Grounds for Visa-Suspension
Today, the European Commission announced numerous measures that it claims will increase its ability to respond “more swiftly and decisively” to concerns such as citizenship by investment programs by making their operation grounds for the suspension of visa-free travel to the Schengen area.
The proposal is accompanied by the release of the Commission’s sixth report under the Visa Suspension Mechanism today.
Currently, several requirements must be completed before the mechanism for suspending a third country’s visa-waiver agreement with the EU can be activated. These are the conditions:
Significant increase (more than 50%) in the number of people arriving illegally from visa-free nations, including those discovered to be staying illegally and those denied entry at the border;
Significant surge (more than 50%) in asylum petitions from countries with low recognition rates (approximately 3-4%);
Decrease in readmission cooperation;
Heightened risk to the security of Member States.
The Commission proposes today to “strengthen” the visa suspension mechanism by, among other things, broadening the grounds for suspension to include conditions such as a country’s “insufficient alignment with the EU’s visa policy, hybrid threats, and the operation of investor citizenship schemes.”
In other words, the Commission wants the authority to revoke visa-free travel from nations that run citizenship-by-investment programs.
Fearful of high acceptance rates and name changes
The report expressed worry about Caribbean CBI countries allowing CBI investors to change their names upon naturalization:
” to varying degrees, all five countries allow successful applicants to change their identities after obtaining citizenship through investment.” It is permitted in Antigua and Barbuda and Dominica five years after earning citizenship; in Grenada after one year; and in Saint Kitts and Nevis [sic] upon obtaining citizenship.”
The Commission also questioned the Caribbean CIPs’ high acceptance rates:
“Based on information received from competent authorities, the Commission has concluded that all of the investor schemes under consideration have a large number of successful applicants, with at least 88,000 passports issued to date.” This figure exceeds 30,000 for several countries (34,500 passports issued by Dominica; 36,742 by Saint Kitts & Nevis). Simultaneously, the rejection rate is extraordinarily low (between 3 and 6%), which, together with the short processing durations (as little as two months in some cases), raises concerns about the completeness of the security screening.”
In its report, the European Commission stated that it was “monitoring all visa-free third countries operating [CIPs]” and noted that “at the moment, a number of visa-free third countries are under close scrutiny due to the potential risks raised by their investor citizenship schemes, or their plans to establish such schemes.”
Furthermore, the report stated that the EU is “especially concerned about investor citizenship schemes that are commercially promoted as providing visa-free access to the EU.”
The Commission also restated its previous caution to Albania to “refrain from establishing an investor citizenship scheme,” this time extending the same warning to North Macedonia.
The new reasons for suspension would automatically trigger the mechanism for nations that operate CIPs, according to today’s statement, and suspension would remain a “mechanism of last resort”:
“The Commission’s goal is to resolve any current challenges (e.g., irregular migration resulting from visa misalignment, unfounded asylum applications, security risks raised by investor citizenship schemes, etc) diplomatically and through joint efforts with the partner countries concerned.”
Commissioner for Home Affairs Ylva Johansson stated that there are “emerging challenges related to visa-free travel that we must be prepared to address.” This is why we need to strengthen our surveillance of EU visa-free regimes and a stronger Visa-Suspension Mechanism.”
