183 days in Malta and you are officially a resident. But only if you plan to buy your passport.
How long before the discrimination suits start coming in?
So if you apply to buy a Maltese passport and rent a flat in Malta, you are registered as a resident after 183 days and get a Maltese ID card.
Or do you get your Maltese ID card immediately and then have to work for it retrospectively by staying here for 183 days? There’s some confusion about that, with conflicting information reaching the press from the government.
The bottom line? Just 183 days in Malta and you’re officially a resident of the country, registered and all. But only if you’re buying your passport.
More perversion of the process of naturalisation: if you’re not Maltese but marry a Maltese person, live in Malta, work here and raise a family of Maltese children, you have to wait for FIVE YEARS before being allowed to apply for Maltese citizenship. This when you have so much vested in Malta and Maltese society.
It’s a good requirement, and we shouldn’t object to it, because it cuts down on the number of marriages contracted for the express purpose of obtaining Maltese citizenship, though some still happen.
But then we don’t mind throwing Maltese passports at those who spend 183 days in Malta, rent a flat for five years but never live in it, and give the government Eur650,000 in cash plus big fees to Henley & Partners.
This is beyond disgusting.
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Did Reding really agree to this?
This sounds like a situation in which the European Commission has handed us a rope to hang ourselves with. Somehow I get the feeling that a backlash will come from somewhere.
That thought crossed my mind too.
L-IIP ta Muscat holqot precedent. Any prime minister in the EU can introduce it now.
What happens if (and that is what I’d do) they offer it at a cheaper ‘price’ ?
Then Joseph Muscat will probably organize a sale and undercut them.
Exactly. Soon, thanks to Muscat there will be programmes introduced whereby you will be able to acquire European citizenship for much, much less. This is the thin end of the wedge.
That will be the end of Muscat’s programme, for why get a Maltese passport if you can get European citizenship for much less? For all her tough talk Reding really keeled over quickly.
Jiddispjacini nghid li l unjoni ewropeja hallitni down f din il kotroversja tac cittadinanza. L unika tama li baqali fil kliem tal kbir Eddie Fenech Adami ‘is sewwa jirbah zgur’.
And there is the Long Term Residence for Third Country Nationals (Subsidiary Legislation 217.05) – the local implementation of an EU-wide directive for residence permits for people from outside the EU.
For third-country national to qualify for this permit, they need to not be a refugee, have worked legally for 5 years, earn at least the national average wage, live in an accommodation deemed to be appropriate, and this:
“In order to be eligible to apply for long-term resident status, a third country national shall provide evidence that he has complied with the following integration conditions, namely:
(a) in the last twelve months immediately prior to the application for long term resident status he has attended a course organised by the public employment service or any other competent authority of at least one hundred hours having as its subject matter the social, economic, cultural and democratic history and environment of Malta, and that he provides evidence certifying that he has attended at least one hundred hours of the lessons of these courses with satisfactory attention and that he has achieved an examination pass mark of at least seventy five percent;
(b) has obtained a pass mark of at least seventy five percent after being assessed by the competent authorities to have achieved the equivalent of Malta Qualifications Framework Level 2 in either Maltese or English; and
(c) provides evidence that the necessary fees charged in relation to the courses, examinations and certificates referred to above have been paid.”
By all rights they should make these integration conditions a requirement if you plan to buy a passport.
Never mind that even most Maltese couldn’t get a 75% pass mark in these tests.
I have been against this scheme from day one, for a few simple reasons.
1) It is against good and decent principles to put up for sale the citizenship of one’s country. This is something priceless and putting a price tag on it makes a person like myself, who values his nationality and citizenship, feel as if it has been made no more then a commodity or a luxury. Whether expensive or cheap it still has a price tag and its the tag that’s the insult.
2) The shame that’s being put on this nation is saddening. I feel that slowly but surely the reputation that Malta built up as a responsible nation post the Mintoff, KMB and Sant years is being tossed out like garbage.
3) If Malta was metaphorically a high performance car, then allow me to say that we have taken out the professional driver and have replaced him with an amateur.
One wonders if those who marry a Maltese will now wait for five years to apply for their passport. Maybe someone would be bold enough to seek redress in court claiming discrimination.
The question is whether we wre talking about normal residence or an ordinary residence. The former is about exceeding a 6 month threshold while the latter involves a much higher degree of ties with our country.
The question should still centre around the amoral sale of citizenship.
What worries me is that the new citizens will most probably be allowed to vote in the next election. If that happens, Labour will win again.
Had Commissioner Reding insisted on a 5-year residence obligation, this would not have happened. We would have had the next election before these foreigners became Maltese citizens.
I am surprised that the European Commission was so lenient and played into Muscat’s hands. Don’t they realise how cunning he is, and that he is routinely in bad faith?
And don’t they know that this was not in his electoral programme, that people did not vote for it, and that the majority of Maltese are against it?
There should have been a referendum.
We are now in a worse state than we were before as now it seems that Muscat has the blessing of the EU.
There are hundreds of volunteers and charity workers who are Maltese but live elsewhere, working on aid projects.
They have been divested of their right to vote in Maltese elections, despite their continued connection to their country and the fact that their entire immediate family lives in Malta.
Now we have people who will barely set foot on Malta, with no relatives or friends living here, without having ever invested or generated a single job in Malta and they will get Maltese citizenship and the right to vote.
Could this really be happening? Total madness.
Unbelievable that the EU have accepted this shameful situation. I would have thought that Commissioner Reding would not have been so compliant, especially after the overwhelming majority of votes against the selling of passports. I wonder what the other members of parliament think of this agreement.
Hear, hear.