TIRANA, Dec. 9 – Local media reported on Monday that the European Delegation to Tirana does not support Prime Minister Edi Rama’s plan to start selling Albanian citizenship to investors in cooperation with citizenship advisory Henley and Partners and that the move could bring back visas for Albanians.
According to Exit.al, ““the European Commission has encouraged Albania to consider whether the introduction of an investor citizenship scheme would be worth the inherent risks.”
More specifically, the delegation reportedly said that failure on the side of the Albanian government to make sure that proper security and background checks are carried out on whoever is granted a passport will result in “grounds for reimposing visa requirements.”
The delegation’s statement highlighted it will monitor the impact of the scheme as part of the visa-suspension mechanism report and that it has communicated its position with Albanian authorities on the subject on several occasions.
Nonetheless, Rama has said he will go ahead with the scheme.
The EU spokesman told local media that “investor citizenship scheme pose risks as regards security, money laundering, tax evasion, terrorist financing, corruption and infiltration by organised crime.”
They added that schemes that allow bypassing regular Schengen visa procedures for 3rd country nationals, can result in “security risks” and an “evasion of measures to prevent money laundering and financing of terrorism.”
During an event with the citizenship advisory firm in London recently, Rama reportedly said to the audience he was aware that the EU and EC would not approve of the risky move.
In addition to providing wealthy investors an Albanian citizenship, the latter will also be able to move freely within the Schengen area without the need for a visa.
Statistically, other countries that have similar citizenship schemes see the highest number of applications for second or third passports come from Russia, China and the Middle East.
Meanwhile, last week, European Commissioner for Justice Vera Jourova told Exit that the Albanian government should refrain from any measures that would jeopardize Albania’s EU aspirations. She has previously called for a bloc-wide ban on citizenship by investment schemes.
On their part, government representatives have not recently commented on the risks such a decision would pose to Albania’s EU aspirations, which already met a big wall during the last EC meeting that suspended both the country and Macedonia from opening accession negotiations indefinitely.
