Malta offers foreign investors the possibility to purchase the citizenship, and even though the country gained a lot of critique for this measure in the beginning of the year, critics have gone quieter now. So far, over 100 people have taken up the offer of the so called “Golden Passport”. They now have unrestricted access to the whole Schengen Area. Cost for acquiring a passport is about €1 million, which means that the Maltese treasury has earned almost €100 million in the last 90 days. Malta has a GDP of about €7.5 billion, and an additional €100 million is quite a large amount. According to government circles, around €30 million in revenue were expected, and they were quite astonished by the strong demand.
Malta defies resistance of the EU and the opposition
The EU showed the strongest resistance against this project. New citizens would not only gain access to Malta, but also the rest of the European Union. However, after a few changes had been applied, they had to accept the programme. New citizens now need to present a residence permit, that is valid for at least one year, and they have to obtain government bonds for at least five years. The original suggestion of anonymity has also been revoked, and the name of the persons purchasing passports must be published.
There was a lot of uproar about the project, however, other European member states, such as Austria, also offer the possibility to obtain citizenship. Having to invest in the country is a common practice to obtain a residence permit, even in the USA. Therefore, other countries should not point their finger at Malta if they also have investment programmes for foreigners to obtain citizenships.
However, a state should not lose their morale and hand out passports to anyone with money. They need to keep in mind the responsibility they have, and value democratic principles that are primarily the rights of the people, and not the rights of the richest.
