The Financial Times online edition last night: Malta is selling passports for Eur650,000 because it is a “crisis-hit southern European nation like Cyprus, Greek and Portugal”

Published: December 10, 2013 at 9:46am

The Financial Times does not permit cutting and pasting of its articles, so after looking at the intro, please carry on reading the full piece via the link below.

And then ring Simon Busuttil and ask him whether he’s been ‘tainting Malta’s image abroad’ by making the ‘island nation’ look bankrupt and desperate with a finance minister who can’t string a sentence together while its prime minister touts passports in Miami.

The Financial Times
December 9, 2013 8:27 pm

‘Passport for sale’ plan raises concern among EU members

By Helen Warrell and Cynthia O’Murchu

Maltese plans to start selling EU passports for €650,000 have sparked security concerns among member states, and raised questions in the UK about how its more modest investor visa scheme will compete.

But the small Mediterranean country is not the first to broach the idea – there have been a flurry of investor programmes as crisis-hit EU nations have battled to attract wealthy foreigners.

In the past two years, several southern European nations including Cyprus, Greece and Portugal have introduced programmes that aim to attract investment in the ailing property and construction sectors. Chinese and Russian investors make up the majority of those who have obtained residence permits this way.

(…) Carry on reading via the link below.




7 Comments Comment

  1. La Redoute says:

    Also on FT.com last night:

    http://www.ft.com/intl/cms/s/0/7de0a9fe-60fe-11e3-b7f1-00144feabdc0.html#axzz2n1QipLLA

    UK ministers are under growing pressure to intervene against plans by the island of Malta to sell EU passports for €650,000, allowing buyers immediate rights of residency in all member states.
    (…) the new scheme – DUE TO BE FORMALLY OPENED BY THE MALTESE GOVERNMENT LATER THIS MONTH – is unique in offering an instant passport to approved applicants with no requirement to be resident in the country beforehand.

    (…) Manfred Weber, vice-chairman of the European People’s party, the centre-right bloc in the European Parliament, complained of the particular threat facing those in the passport-free Schengen area.

    “Schengen is a European project that is based on mutual trust and should not be undermined by steps like this,” he said.

  2. Anon says:

    Worthy of CNBC front page also…

    http://www.cnbc.com/id/101259666

  3. Hampshire Wise Owl says:

    Daphne, you can use this image from the BBC newspaper review service.

    http://news.bbcimg.co.uk/media/images/71639000/jpg/_71639328_ft10.jpg

    [Daphne – That’s a different edition – the UK edition – and the story is different too. Thank you for telling me about it. I have run a separate post on it.]

  4. We are living in Financial Times says:

    Interesting that The Financial Times have only now decided to report on this particular matter.

    Also interesting is the angle taken, and the manner by which Henley & Partners have been referred to: The Financial Times reports that Henley & Partners, “a consultancy,” will be carrying out the due diligence for the sale of passports, but it failed to report that they have also been granted exclusivity in handling the sale of passports.

    This is the one time, that with a closer perspective on the matter, I have been able to observe that The Financial Times does unfortunately fall short of expectations of full clarity and transparency.

  5. Salvu says:

    We are now a few metres away from hitting the wall at full speed.

  6. Foggy says:

    The FT article once more exposes the lie that other European States have similar schemes. Most are initially concerned with residency not citizenship and require the applicant to reside and to invest and/or buy property.

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