‘Anti-social, shocking, crazy and ridiculous’ - MEPs’ harsh comments on golden passport

Manfred Weber, the vice-chairman of the European People's Party group, said Schengen area passports should not be sold and that the European Commission had to check whether Malta's Individual Investor Programme (IIP) was compatible with the Schengen Agreement.

"Such schemes should not be made without the consultation of the other Schengen member states and the European Commission. Schengen is a European project that is based on mutual trust and should not be undermined by steps like this. This kind of disrespect of the socialist government in Malta is inacceptable."

Malta's controversial citizenship sale, which will sell passports for €650,000 to non-EU nationals, will be discussed in the European Parliament today Wednesday.

The mood across several political groups, from communists to socialists, as well as conservatives and liberals, appears to be geared against the Individual Investor Programme.

But there are divergent viewpoints on how the sale of passports should be conducted.

Dutch socialist MEP, Dennis de Jong, said that EU member states should protest Malta's sale of citizenship instead of having the European Commission regulate who can become a naturalised citizen of member states.

While De Jong is a member of the United Green Left, which gathers the radical left, the head of the Labour Party's European family, Hannes Swoboda of the European socialists, has said the citizenship sale "undermines European values".

De Jong, who disagrees with the citizenship sale, has said that member states should threaten to stop the admission of Malta's IIP citizens, rather than grant Brussels the competence of who should be an EU citizen.

Under Malta's IIP rules, applicants with criminal backgrounds or proceedings pending against them, are ineligible to purchase a Maltese passport, which also includes the acquisition of a €350,000 property and €150,000 in government stocks.

But De Jong said that Malta was hoping to raise €1 billion from a passport sale that he described as being "anti-social".

"People across the Mediterranean seek asylum in Malta as it's the first land they encounter in their crossing, but rich criminals are more than welcome. Sheer class (in)justice. Incidentally, more and more member states are promoting similar schemes and the Netherlands even allows a millionaire to get a residence permit if you invest at least €1.25 million in the Dutch business community."

The European Parliament's resolution, whatever the outcome, has no binding effect on Malta, which retains the right to determine its own naturalisation rules.

"The EU is not a federal state and it's the member states who decide who gets naturalised and under what conditions," de Jong said.

Strasbourg debate

All is set for a heated debate in Strasbourg on the sale of citizenship by Malta, with a vote scheduled to be taken tomorrow Thursday

The leader of the Socialist Group in the European Parliament, Hannes Swoboda, yesterday morning called on the EU to establish common rules to govern the granting of European citizenship. "The granting of citizenship should not be treated solely as something in the remit of member states as it involved the sale of EU passports," Swoboda said, while criticising the fact that Malta was offering citizenship for the wealthy while taking a tough position on asylum seekers.

In other comments, former Belgian prime minister Guy Verhofstadt, a Liberal MEP, described the IIP as "crazy", while Dany Cohn-Bendit, co-chairman of the European Greens, said the scheme was "ridiculous" as it went against European treaties. 

The delegation leader of the Dutch christian-democratic party (CDA) in the EPP Group, Wim van de Camp MEP said he wanted the

European Commission to take a closer look at this case.

"The EU member states should actually have more or less the same criteria for giving passports. One criteria could be that the person has to invest in the country and be obliged to live there for a number of years.

"The Netherlands imposes certain conditions for giving a residence permit, Malta sells passports. There is a fundamental difference there.  

"The sale of nationality and citizenship will be used by populist parties in Europe to argue against open borders. They will judge asylum seekers and boat refugees in the same way as they judge rich foreigners."

The EPP Group coordinator of the LIBE Committee, MEP Veronique Mathieu Houillon, said she was shocked at the decision to sell passports without a residency requirement.

"I wonder what they want to achieve with such a reform: an open-door policy to money laundering? Not only that it does not bring anything to the Maltese citizens but it also undermines the European citizenship.

"The European citizenship entails rights and duties: it materialises our common project and it is one of the pillars of the European Union. It is not good at all that European citizenship is now on sale. The Maltese government is betraying the mutual trust enjoyed between the European member states, something that we have been trying to build for many years."