Have you missed this? The government is going to sell more passports to make up for ‘introducing a one-year residency requirement’
It got lost in the fluff yesterday, and didn’t make the headlines, which it should have done. It also merited a separate report in the newspapers and lots of fuss by the Opposition.
The prime minister said in his press conference yesterday evening that because the government had agreed to introduce a one-year residency requirement (read my previous post on the subject of that), they are going to have to “raise the capping on the number of passports sold”.
Because of the obfuscating terminology he used, reporters and readers seem to have missed the meaning: THE GOVERNMENT IS GOING TO SELL PASSPORTS TO APPLICANTS OVER AND ABOVE THE PREVIOUSLY SET FIGURE OF 1,800 FAMILIES.
The government has informed the EU Commission already of its intention, as reported in the EU Observer this morning:
(The European Commission) added that Malta “informed” it of “its intention to evaluate whether an increase would need to be made to the current capping of main applicants.”
As seasoned readers of this government’s Doublespeak, we will know that when the government says it is going to evaluate something, it has made up its mind to do it already.
23 Comments Comment
Leave a Comment
This will lead to the situation we have in the UK for school catchment areas: people will rent a house for a year and then bugger off.
I can’t get over the level some people have fallen to in treating what is ours by right as a commodity to be traded. It is now just about the’ scheme and millions of euro’ not Maltese citizenship.
What a shame.
Brava.
The cap will be 1800 per year, leaving them free to tout 600 a month.
Manwel Mallia’s got so much at stake there’s nothing he wouldn’t stoop to.
Surely his 500,000 manna from heaven must have grown some, recently?
Besides, this also means that Joseph Muscat will have no cash before a year’s time and this after finding interested persons who are prepared to spend a year in Malta.
What about tax compliance for these new citizens? If I understood it well if one resides in Malta for 185 days one is liable to pay taxes in Malta.
Joseph Muscat promised to make us the best in Europe. Instead he is making us the cheapest and most mocked.
He’s made us the best laughing stock in Europe.
What happens to the camera shy billionaire?
Damn, he’ll have to live here for a year. A rubare le galline.
[Daphne – He already has his passport. Why else would he have flown in, if not to collect it?]
So 1 year for those who pay and 5 years for normal people?
There will be no requirement for physical presence, or for tax payments, I assure you that. I am sure Henley made sure to explain what will sell best and I am sure the EU does not understand that people will be called residents even though they will not have to live in Malta.
Also, I assure you that Henley will get the 650,000 euros immediately and hold on to it (and receive management fees for holding on to the money) for at least a year while the “residence” requirements are fulfilled.
Hang on a minute…didn’t they say that residency was not introduced as otherwise seeing that Malta is so small there is a chance that we will be overpopulated?
So now that they have had to introduce some sort of residency, they propose selling even more passports. As the saying in Maltese goes ‘Hawwadni ha nifmek”.
No one who buys a passport has plans to live in Malta.
I have not managed to find the PL-EU agreement anywhere. Does anyone have an idea where to get hold of it?
Meanwhile this is taking place.
In Bangkok anti-government demonstrators are calling for Thai Prime Minister Yingluck Shinawatra to resign.
Yingluck Shinawatra is the younger sister to Thaksin Shinawatra who was ousted by the military in 2006 and sentenced to jail in absentia for abuse of power in 2008.
Thaksin Shinawatra has a new Montenegrin passport and citizenship allowing him to cross most of Europe without visas, it also shields him from extradition to Thailand, where he faces a two-year prison term for corruption and where he still retains huge influence over Thai politics.
In their sales pitch Carvalho state ‘Moreover the residency in Montenegro may in short perspective become residency in the EU’.
Meanwhile Montenegro has dropped its cash-for-citizenship scheme after “numerous analyses and consultations, including consultations with the EU.
Diplomatic and second passports, anyone?
http://diplomaticsecondpassport.com/index.html
The scheme still makes inequality in Malta that much worse. People who’ve lived for so many years and contribute to our economy aren’t even allowed to dream of getting citizenship, while the rich get it after just one year of residence (whatever interpretation they give it). Either way, was there any doubt the changes to the scheme were going to be anything but superficial?
I was 200% sure that somehow the capping would b raised.
The PM is fully aware that now the one-year residency requirement makes his diabolical scheme less appealing to tycoons so yesterday in the press conference he refers to this requirement as just a ‘formality’.
So what is his little mind scheming now? I’m afraid that there will be no end to the IIP scheme saga. Shame on him.
Now that the EU have agreed that citizenship can be given against payment and a 12 months (read 183 days) stay in Malta, a EU country, other EU countries can easily follow suit. And so can Montenegro, after calling it off.
I really do hope that Joseph Muscat is considering the impact of selling citizenship to so many rich people as it will have a ripple effect on schools, university, hospitals etc etc. Rich people have an knack to get back as much as they can when spending/investing money. I am quite sure that they will be sending their offspring to ‘safe’ Malta for free schools university hospitals etc. All this is included for free when buying an EU/Maltese passport. We are talking about some 6000 people here not a boatload of migrants who have few rights in Malta
Daphne, I think the passport law fiasco holds the record in Maltese politics for the most fact-twisting, lies, misinformation, mishandling, rushing blindly through parliament, U-turns, saying something and doing something else, secrecy, etc. etc.
How about a blog-post on this subject, so that we all can share comments while it is all fresh in our minds?
But I do not believe that this saga is over yet. I am sure that EU states are aware of the scam, It is yet a matter of time when they start to clamour for the EU to legislate on the matter.
I agree, I don’t think that the EU has knowingly opened doors for such a scheme to be copied by others.
http://diplomaticsecondpassport.com/index.html is a well know scam, from the serial scammer [email protected] (they change identities and emails addresses year after year). There are scams report dated almost 10 years old,so beware.