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Every country in the European Union has the right to offer citizenship for sale. Depending on the country and its economic situation, the price tags vary, at times wildly.
And every so often a scandal pops around the continent with the best deal of the moment. The latest comes courtesy of Bulgaria and its new fast-track system that enables foreigners to get a passport and the rights of all European Union citizens without even the minimum conditions set by many other EU countries peddling their passports and residence visas, such as buying property or investing in businesses.
All Bulgaria asks for is the equivalent of £150,000 and a visit to the eastern European country for two days, according to an investigation by undercover reporters from the UK's Daily Telegraph.
Visas for sale are nothing new in the EU. Most countries, among them Great Britain, France and Ireland, offer them in order to attract foreign capital. Known as “Golden Visas,” they usually are considered an incentive to those able to invest either in a new or existing local business, or in property, or by creating local jobs with the caveat that they show they are not laundering money.
The United States, Canada and Australia operate similar schemes to speed up residency permits for individuals investing in businesses or buying property worth more than one million of the local currency - in these cases dollars, dollars and dollars.
The EU financial crisis in recent years, however, has opened the visas-for-investment exchange to a far larger number of less wealthy foreign investors. Spain, Portugal, and Greece, to name a few, have been offering them to those with enough money to buy a second home abroad.
Portugal and Spain will speed residency applications to people buying properties worth €500,000. In Cyprus, the price is €300,000; Greece, its economy dire, demands only €250,000. The small island of Malta was publicizing a fast-passport scheme for €650,000.
But none has a scheme as undemanding as Bulgaria's, which allegedly provides a passport without the need to live or work in the country. “So long as applicants can deposit sufficient funds, they need only visit the east European country for two days to obtain all the rights of EU citizens,” the Telegraph claims. “Even someone with a criminal record who has been turned down for a British passport can qualify for Bulgarian citizenship under the scheme, agents brokering the deal said.”
What has the British railing is the fact that through the Bulgarian deal, “non-Europeans can buy European Union citizenship entitling them to live and work in Britain for as little as £150,000.”
A passport broker with offices in Sofia, London and Dubai told the undercover reporters that “it’s an EU passport and anywhere in the European Union you can settle down…When you become a Bulgarian citizen, then you have all the rights of an EU citizen, you live, study, work, anywhere within the European Union.”
The article explains that an EU or British student studying Preclinical Medicine at Oxford University, for example, would pay £9,000 a year in tuition fees, compared to the £16,545 paid by an overseas student.
The entire issue has triggered concern among EU officials. “It is legitimate to question whether EU citizenship rights should merely depend on the size of someone’s wallet or bank account.” warned EU Justice Commissioner Vivane Reding. “Citizenship must not be up for sale”.
David Hanson, the UK's shadow immigration minister, said that he is “concerned by the growing trend for some EU member states to sell citizenship with too few security measures and ways to stop potential abuse, and I believe that the Foreign and Commonwealth Office should be doing more to work with these countries and put forward our significant concern about these measures.”
