Opposition presents motion to repeal Maltese citizenship legal notice

21st March 2014

NEWS The Opposition spokesperson on home affairs, Dr Jason Azzopardi, has presented a motion in the Maltese parliament calling for the repeal of regulations published in Legal Notice 47 of 2014 covering the Individual Investor Programme, better known as the citizenship for sale scheme. It states that the legal notice does not specify the period of effective residency and also that the scheme will not be run by a Maltese agency, as Prime Minister Joseph Muscat had stated, but by a foreign company.
The motion further states that the regulations do not make specific reference to the clause in the agreement with the EU that applicants must live in Malta ‘effectively’ for one year. Nor do the regulations specify that dependants of applicants, who would also receive Maltese passports, have to similarly live here for an effective period of one year.
The legal notice gives this company, Henley and Partners, the right to withhold the money deposited by the applicants for up to two years until the due diligence exercise is completed.
The Opposition also objected to the fact that the minister responsible for home affairs is given the right to allow citizenship to be awarded also to criminals or were a threat to national security. It also objected to the idea that the names of people granted Maltese citizenship through the scheme are not to be listed separately from those who get a Maltese passport through marriage or naturalisation.
Government’s reaction
In a reaction to this Opposition move, the Ministry of Home Affairs said in a statement that the regulations had been studied and approved by the European Union and the Opposition was now going against what the EU had approved.
The Opposition, the ministry said, was now isolated in its opposition to a programme which would yield €1 billion to the country.
The government has once again insisted that the Opposition is continuing to create obstacles to the citizenship scheme which is the only one that has the approval of the European Union.
The government never had a problem with debating the subject in any forum, and the same applies now. Today there is a consensus on the scheme, with the exception of the Opposition, the government said.