site.btaEuropean Commission Reiterates Concerns over Bulgaria's "Golden Passports" Scheme

October 20 (BTA) - The European Commission said Tuesday it has written again to Bulgaria to highlight its concerns regarding its investor citizenship scheme and requesting further details. The Bulgarian Government has one month to reply to the letter requesting further information, following which the Commission will decide on the next steps.

The Commission said it is launching infringement procedures against Cyprus and Malta for "selling" EU citizenship via the so called "golden passport" schemes. The Commission considers that the granting by these Member States of their nationality - and thereby EU citizenship - in exchange for a pre-determined payment or investment and without a genuine link with the Member States concerned, is incompatible with the principle of sincere cooperation enshrined in the Treaty on European Union. Due to the nature of EU citizenship, such schemes have implications for the Union as a whole. When a Member State awards nationality, the person concerned automatically becomes an EU citizen and enjoys all rights linked to this status, such as the right to move, reside and work freely within the EU, or the right to vote in municipal elections as well as elections to the European Parliament. As a consequence, the effects of investor citizenship schemes are neither limited to the Member States operating them, nor are they neutral with regard to other Member States and the EU as a whole, the Commission argued.

It recalled that in a resolution adopted on July 10, 2020, the European Parliament reiterated its earlier calls on Member States to phase out all existing citizenship by investment or residency by investment schemes as soon as possible.

Back in January 2019, the Commission presented a comprehensive report on investor citizenship and residence schemes operated by a number of EU Member States. It said that three Member States: Bulgaria, Cyprus and Malta, operate schemes that grant investors the nationality of these countries under conditions which are less strict than ordinary naturalisation regimes. In these three Member States, there is no obligation of physical residence for the individual, nor a requirement of other genuine connections with the country before obtaining citizenship. In practice, these schemes are often advertised as a means of acquiring Union citizenship, together with all the rights and privileges associated with it.

On January 22, 2019, a day before the Commission released its report, Bulgarian Deputy Prime Minister and Foreign Minister Ekaterina Zaharieva said that the Justice Ministry had tabled revisions to the Bulgarian Citizenship Act to end the award of Bulgarian citizenship to large investors. In the latest development on the matter, on October 2, 2019, the Government approved a bill amending the Bulgarian Citizenship Act eliminating the possibility for permanent resident foreigners in Bulgaria to acquire Bulgarian citizenship through a simplified procedure after they have made short-term investments in this country. Judging from the National Assembly website, such a bill has not yet reached the legislature.

An October 2018 report of Transparency International said that Bulgaria makes 25 million euro annually from selling citizenship in return for investment. The income from selling residence in exchange for investment is unknown. According to the same report, between 2012 and October 2017, Bulgaria granted citizenship- and residence-by-investment permits to 75 applicants from Russia, 39 from China, 33 from Pakistan, 28 from Egypt and 25 from Lebanon.

BTA Brussels correspondent Nikolay Jeliazkov contributed to this story. LN//