BLOOMBERG: ‘Malta decides to sell passports’

Bloomberg’s The Ticker report:

Malta decides to sell passports

Malta’s parliament approved a controversial proposal to grant automatic citizenship for 650,000 euros ($871,000). The only requirement will be that candidates pass a due diligence process to make sure they aren’t criminals. Polls show that the scheme is unpopular, with 53 percent of Maltese citizens opposing it and only 26 percent voicing support, but the government of the small island state hopes to make $40 million selling passports, and that outweighs all other considerations. Malta’s passport scheme compares favorably to other European programs of this kind, because it does not contain any residency or language requirements: It is a simple exchange of cash for passport, the only deal of this kind in the EU today. Individual EU nations’ economic needs are one of the reasons Europe will not have a united policy on immigration in the near future.