You don't understand... the passports in Cyprus and Malta were FOR FREE. You invest 2+ million. Get your passport. You are now Cypriot/Maltese. Now sell that asset you paid 2M for to your brother for 2M. You get your 2M back, your brother pays 2M and becomes Cypriot. Now HE sells it to the next person. And so on and so on.
@@steffenscheibler5849 You can't move money around for free. Moving that much money back and forth is gonna accrue a lot of fees, which is how financial services make the bulk of their money.
It sounds like the problem isn’t the golden visa/passport scheme itself. The fundamental issue is lack of due diligence and enforcement of due diligence. This could apply to all visa types, not just golden ones.
@@jgt_ 25% for a poor person barely getting by is gonna hurt a lot more than someone who has billions to waste. There's a poverty line to fall under, there's no slightly less rich line
@@jgt_ I'm not saying they'll do it willingly. I'm saying it won't matter as much to them. If you need 100$ to make ends meet, getting fined 25$ might be devastating. If you have 10000$, getting fined 2500$ hurts but you still have 7500$, well above what you need to live comfortably.
@@jgt_ It's not nonsense, but it is a little more complicated than either of you are saying. It's certainly more fair (and useful) to fine according to net worth, or at least, income, but it's true that even proportionate fines have a higher chance to hurt the poor than the rich. Rich people, or at least, people with a large income, do not generally live at the same level of quality and quantity as poor people do, and just save the rest - they generally do spend a sizeable chunk of their money, just still not proportionately to the amount poor people spend - they leave more room for security. Consequently, a poor person living paycheck to paycheck cannot decide to spend less, while a rich person generally can, even if they have regular expenses like mortgages or insurance or such. It might still hurt, indeed it probably will, just not to the extent that it might hurt a poor person. This is lessened if who counts as poor in a country isn't _that_ poor, since then the expenses are more proportional, but in countries where some people really just scrape by, a proportional fine is not proportional in impact. There is simply a lower limit on how much money you need to survive, regardless of proportionality, and a fine (proportional or no) might make you cross it if you're poor, but not if you're rich.
Person: "Cyprian and with it EU citizenship please" Cyprus: "Hmm.. But it says here you have a serious criminal background. Money laundering, fraud..." Person: "I am very rich" Cyprus: "Come right in! And bring your family as well"
Jami When actual ISIS criminals violate the greek or cyptiot borders with the help of Turkay, EU NGO welcome them and trick the customs agents to help them enter the EU where some of them have already commited terrorist attacks.
that part at the end about Irish and Italian citizenship actually helped me out. my mom's family is descended from italian immigrants in the past century, and my dad's family is descended from Irish immigrants in the past century as well (I'm an American). we actually have good family records of our ancestry.
🙄a lot of countries have "right of return" or accelerated naturalisation for people who can prove their grandparents came from there. It's just that some add in a language requirement too. Google it, people!
This is a very hot topic in Portuguese politics. Specially because the state says that this attracts international investment, but in reality this only served to rise the price of real estate driving people out of the city's.
Trenton do you think Barnier can keep of the drink long enough to sing anything. Hes warming his hands now as Belfast burns because of his demands in the EUs Northern Ireland protocol.
250K for one passport is not OK, bare-minimum should be 1M, and only for the core-family (father, mother, children), but I am also OK with GOLDEN PASSPORTS
Unfortunately it’s not just an Italian male ancestor, it’s an Italian male ancestor (or now thankfully allowed for female ancestor too who was born before 1948 if person goes through Italian court system) who left Italy after 1861, was not naturalized in a foreign country before 1912 and whose descendants never renounced Italian citizenship before the birth of the subsequent generation. It’s actually quite a tedious process but definitely worth it 😊🇮🇹
PALE MALE actually not only the applicant but also any ancestor in the line of Italian ascent if born to an Italian woman prior to Jan 1, 1948. If this is the situation (what I wrote) then yes, you must file with an Italian tribunal if you are deriving citizenship from only an Italian woman whose children were born before 1948 in your Italian line. Even though the Italian government does not send lawyers to defend such cases anymore, the administrative procedure through the consulates in getting Italian citizenship for someone whose family is in such a situation is not permitted. Italian consulates won’t process these applications and therefore one must file with tribunale ordinario di roma to claim citizenship this way. The outcome while highly probable for an approval is not even guaranteed. You are talking about a case with females in the line of ascent whose children and subsequent generations (including the applicant) were born after January 1, 1948 which does not even touch upon the issues of this “1948 rule” so it’s a different category of cases what you refer to
PALE MALE I see. Well good luck! But for the consulate to process can’t have any female ancestors who gave birth to subsequent generation born prior to 1948 (have to do tribunal). If that’s not your situation then it’s nice to have the ability to do it via the consulate, but I’ve found that the court cases are actually quicker than the administrative ones in consulate! At least for people of Italian descent in northeast USA. (NY consulate has a 2 year wait, crazy!)
There should be European rules for this. Fine to become a European citizen; however, you gotta stick to European laws and if we find out your money has been acquired in ways that are illegal in Europe, it should be confiscated and you should go to jail. That ought to weed out the bad seeds.
Clearly the EU needs to be empowered to crack down much harder on corruption. There are far too many instances of corruption in recent years in certain eastern and southern European countries. Perhaps a dedicated European court and investigatory arm (a new branch of Europol, for instance) devoted entirely to political corruption.
Because residency only means you are allowed to reside in that one specific country for the long term. You don't get most of the rights as those as citizens, not any of the rights from the EU
@@Adderkleet you don’t need to actually live in the specific country in order to get citizenship E.g. you only need to stay a few days each year for continuous 5 years to get one in Ireland , Portugal has similar things with additional language requirements
The Cyprus method is quicker and gets you a passport right away. The Bulgarian system has an extra step- you get residency first, then increase your investment to get the passport. EDIT: additionally, with the Bulgarian method you have to actually go to Bulgaria multiple times during the process to complete certain bureaucratic necessities. Not everyone wants to do this.
@@cameroff Abolish taxes too. we should confiscate resources from the local councils and media corporations to pay for that transport and those who want to house these migrants can provide their own resources.
Now that the major seller of EU citizenships is no longer in the EU the EU commission is finally cracking down on the issue without the UK vetoing the interference in it's money laundering empire.
@@XENONEOMORPH1979 how about Russian oligarchs becoming lords and owning half of London? not sing enough for ya? UK(and it's overseas territories) is the world capital of money laundering. You can actually read about it if you just try and look. EUR has nothing to do with it.
xeno neomorph LONDON is known for hiding money. From Russians to Chinese. They all hide money in expensive London apartments. The uk is one big laundry mat
In Greece, particularly in Athens, golden visa had become a plague. Chinese "investors" have bought so many apartments in the Athenian coastline and elsewhere (they go for the pricier regions) and as a result rent prices have skyrocketed all over Athens, it's very hard to find anything to rent at a reasonable price. If something made the Greek recession a bit more tolerable was cheap housing, now that one is gone too, everything (commodities, services and housing) has become as expensive as in western/northern Europe if not more expensive while we need to live with a fraction of their salaries.
One of my buddies was given Luxembourgish citizenship merely by proving one of his ancestors many generations ago was from Luxembourg. Now he has his EU passport
The law in Spain that provided citizenship to descendants of jews (sephardim) already ended. Pending cases are being completed and solved but no one can apply via this law since 2019.
This issue plays into the importance of Brexit & why it was so necessary. The British people should not have a unacceptable third party telling them how foreigners may become citizens. Thus, Malta & Cyprus should be telling the EU where to shove it. They should be free to manage their own citizenship program as they see fit as independent democracies. That being said, I imagine we can all agree ‘selling’ citizenship to corrupt people and/or known criminals is ridiculous, BUT that’s a domestic issue, up to the people of their respective countries to tolerate or to not tolerate. As a Canadian, I do not want the US telling my country who can become a Canadian citizen, or how to do it, just because we belong to the same free trade agreement & security/intelligence group.
I would say only ancestors scheme or naturalization should work. There should be no way to buy "the rights' like that since the level of corruption outside of the EU is horrible.
Citizenship and residency having a price is a direct and unavoidable result of legal immigration being hard to achieve. If you want to stop countries from having these kinds of schemes, you'll need to either expand external migration, or take away immigration control from individual EU member states (in the same way that US member states have no say over immigration).
My grandfather on my biological fathers side (and his father, my great-grandfather) was an Italian citizen. I might be eligible to become an Italian citizen and thus by extension remain a European citizen as well 😊.
@@Gr3nadgr3gory you can't have italian citizenship without the eu one. If you're a citizen of any of the 27 member states, than you are automatically a EU citizen. The EU does work, which is also the reason why it still exists, and the league of nations doesn't
@@wandafisch4411 really? Because I've heard member states complain about the EU all the time. One country even got fed up enough that they left the damn union. I've heard it described as the fourth Reich.
@@Gr3nadgr3gory if you listen to people on the internet or here on TH-cam, they are a small and really loud minority. The problem of the EU is that it is easier for politicians to blame the EU for things than themselves, and many people believe them because they don't know anything about the EU
But the descendants of women who left Italy before 1948 or who, because of the old law, lost their citizenship due to marrying a non-Italian, still have to hire a lawyer to get it.
I don't get why this is wrong. If EU members can give passports for free to lets say refugees or people who happen to be born there. Than why not sell them too? It's smart or shall we just continue to give things for free?
Or if you can afford to hire a lawyer and you only are only able to prove descent from a female italian you can go through teir courts using their equality law to gain citizenship, it's basically paying the court fees for some stuff to be rubber stamped as it's an established precedent
Like with most EU standards there should be a minimum requirement. Countries should be able to have stricter standards, but not lower then minimum. It could be partly solved by adding a time requirement to the application process as with naturalisation.
You can get a D7 visa from Portugal if you have 20k in the bank and became resident. After five years you can apply for passport. Or invest about 300,000 in residential property and do the same.
Portuguese one requires u to spend seven days yr in the country and if u want to eventually apply for citizenship u need to speak the language to some degree demonstrate some link to the community At least u need to make some effort The Malta one if u pay up and get documents in place u are a citizen in 8 months
The baltic passports obtain is a investment of 100k euros in property to get a settlement visa or 500k for a citizenship. I know as I have a wife from Russia we married for 3 years and decided to move to EU in near future me and our daughter we are a EU citizens but not my wife... we been looking for an easy way to obtain but we not really able to invest these money so we go by the hard way the family reunion scheme(((
@@bestgameplay831 well I agree with that but to become an European citizen you need at least 5 years of settlement in the country. Amd holding a temporary settlement visa for 3 years continuously and 2 years of permanent settlement in the country you issued the I'd card. But of course the golden passport is a easy way to get it but not everybody have the money to invest. And about my wife she will get a permanent settlement visa for 1 years (in Lithuania after she will obtain the family reunion visa which she must hold for at least 2 years continuously)which after she able to do the citizenship.
Yes, Golden passports should become a thing of the past. But also the other EU member States should shrink their scheme of naturalization, reducing to a maximum of two generations born abroad this right (specially talking to you Italy). And I say this as an Italian European that lives in a non-EU country, against potential future descendants’ interests.
Paradoxically you can easily have an Italian passport if your grand grand parents are Italian and you never been in Italy or know anything about Italy. But if you are born in Italy from not Italian relatives you need to wait till your 18 although your parents are permanently settle in the country.
@@Fedenija Can be further than great great grandparents. the last Italian born relative just need to have been alive after Italy became a kingdom in the 1800s, then no generation naturalise before the next, and didn't pass from women before 1948, although the latter can be fought in court.
@Fede Greco as result you see tons of Argentinians, Uruguayans, Brazilians and Venezuelans emigrating to other EU States with an Italian passport, making us responsible of all the consequences in front of our partners. Hearing also claims (and complains sometimes) by Spanish people that say there are a lot more of Italians (around 200k) in Spain than Spanish (around 20k) in Italy... but surprise surprise, the vast majority of them have dual citizenship, can you guess which passports do they hold (other than the Italian one)?? ;-)
@SamJonesMediaHUD in the long term will turn unsustainable, can you imagine in the next decades how many American citizens (referring the the whole continent) could potentially become ita citizens? There could be 4-5 times more Italian citizens from abroad than from our peninsula. This could really ruin our relation with the other EU States, really hope they will begin to force us for a change as they are doing now with Malta and Cyprus about golden passports.
@@LoeZack I’m guilty of this. I had a Polish grandfather and Italian grandmother. I was born in UK. I have British, Polish and Italian passport. I guess grandparents isn’t too far back? Haha. At least booking an appointment for Italian citizenship is difficult if your parent didn’t register you. There would be many more millions of it was simpler to get an appointment. Most consulates around the world are backed up for years. Although you can travel to Italy and do it in the space of a few months.
It is useful for people (like me) who have european ancestry but just miss out on claiming descendent status. My great grandparents and grandparents are British/French/Dutch but I am unable to claim anything from any of them. I also dont have a spare 2mil euros either though so rip.
5:15 Well shit, I didn't know my nation - Latvia and neighboring Estonia were no longer part of the EU :D And Latvia also has the Investor residency bullcrap.
Portugal are now cheapest as they have brought it down from €500,000 to €280,000 I am originally Cypriot but why would you spend €2.2m when you can get the same for nearly 10X cheaper, makes no sense I can get this for you through my property business if interested, as well as passport and citizenship in most countries
Not sure about golden passports, it just makes the countries ( and EU) less democratic because money talks and buys influence. As a UK citizen I do object to having my EU citizenship arbitrarily removed by the UK government and having to apply for visas if I want to stay in Schengen countries longer than 90 days in any 180 after 3112 20. I would willingly pay to return to the status quo of freedom of travel in the Schengen area, as long as the payment wasn’t to the UK government.
I just wish I had the money for one of the investor schemes. On principal, I think that the four freedoms should be a global thing - essentially freedom of movement should be a fundamental human right. But when it's not, it's not right that having money allows you to sidestep these rules. If we can't have a truly level playing field, at least a more level one is better.
I hope that one day I can live enough to see the world become more like that, people from poorer countries being treated in the airport as humans beings not pieces of garbage.
When so many countries are denying entry of refugees who need a safe haven it does seem to be somewhat immoral to provide that, and more, on the basis of cash alone. That having been said, I can also see why some countries might resist having the EU tell them who they can and cannot give residency/citizenship to. It seems the EU needs to look at a two tier EU citizenship, an automatic EU citizenship by birth or marriage (which gives free movement within the EU), while allowing countries to give a wider citizenship on whatever basis they think appropriate without those people gaining automatic freedom of movement within the EU (to some extent, this is what a golden residency would give, which is somewhat different to a golden citizenship).
For one, the designers of these golden passport (and investment-residency) schemes know exactly what they're doing. They're also well aware that the EU citizenship these passports bring are the main draw. No oligarch wakes up in the morning thinking, _gee, wouldn't it be nice to be Cypriot and live within artillery-striking distance of the TRNC_ . If you only end up being able to buy citizenship that doesn't give you access to the rest of the EU, then there's no point pissing that money away in these countries. In that case you're better off going to the Caribbean island countries, which at least give you visa-free access to most of Europe. Also, while I'm not opposed to it, multiple classes of citizenship seem like one of those things most Europeans would be against, seeing as how that literally makes some people second-class citizens.
@@awijaya2116 All of that may be true, but one can also then understand why the EU might be upset at Cyprus and Malta making money from a scheme that is selling an asset of the EU rather than merely an asset of Cyprus or Malta. I can totally understand that what is actually being sold is EU citizenship, then why should that be at the discretion of a couple of small individual countries within the EU, why should that not be a decision that the EU collectively makes?
@@Hfil66 Hey, you won't see me arguing against that. Neither will the countries of origin of the purchasers of these golden passports - keep in mind, no country wants to suffer capital flight, and these golden passports facilitate just that. The only proponents of golden passports are the states issuing them, and the ones purchasing them. Everyone else is at best ambivalent towards the idea.
Golden Passports are an income source. I don't think that should be forbidden in itself. However, there should be a few rules: 1.) For anyone who gets a passport there has to be made a background check. Same for the money that is used. (We don't want wanted murderers or bloody money) 2.) When a passport is sold, all member states should get something of the money. This is because an EU citizen can travel freely within the EU. Therefore to rights that are sold belong to all countries That being said, I'd rather not have it at all than have it done badly
8:54 This is the core of the problem right here. You get European Union-wide benefits for the passport, but the passports are administered separately in each country.
As I understand it, if you are from one of 59 countries, including 5 Caribbean nations that sell passports for 1/10th the price & you invest in for example the Portuguese Golden Visa you secure virtually identical rights to the people buying a Maltese or Cypriot or Bulgarian citizenship save for the travel benefits of the passport that secures immediate visa-free access to 3 or 4 of the most difficult countries to secure visa access to, by which I mean Australia, the USA, Canada & New Zealand.
Calling it a "scheme" then asking if we think it's ok to participate in it sounds a bit rhetorical. This "scheme" has popped up in many countries in many forms over the last 100 years so I cannot be surprised that it is still going strong. To me, if you can get citizenship by showing you have assets to sustain yourself and wait a few years as a resident, it is not different than paying a million bucks to get de-facto citizenship
Anyone seen the new requirements for immigration to the UK? The home secretary's own parents would not have met the financial/educational requirements. Anyone who does would go to far more attractive and lucrative countries!
@Claudio Diov we owe them a lot. Our country killed their families just because of their religion. We are descendants of these people who killed them so we should be better than them right? If they wanna come back to their family homes then let them come. They are the German people who fled because of the country. Show some respect sir.
@Claudio Diov While I agree that after a certain number of years or generations, there should eventually be a cut-off - with direct sufferers from the Holocaust still being alive, I do not see it being time for that. Also, since you're clearly utterly unaware: Those who fled Germany and pretty much *had* to take another citizenship were, for a long time, not ALLOWED to regain their old citizenship. And und until the 70s, citizenship was passed along the male line in Germany (no joke), which posed an additional problem for women that had fled. Being allowed to easily gain back their citizenship is not just in response to the injustices of the nazi era - it's also in response to other injustices of the post-war era, and is rather recent.
what is worst, a handful of dodgy Chinese millionaires? or 100 of thousands of africans / muslims migrants (Every years! over the past 30 years) among whom a large proportion will not integrate and not respect the local custom? I bet most EU citizens would not want either, and especially the latter, which has had much more serious consequences. Once again the EU is good at giving lessons.
It may be an unpopular opinion but I think golden passports can be a good thing provided the following conditions are met:- (please read before disliking) -stringent security checks of criminal record/etc at point of entry and also cross verification by another member state. -any financial gains from the scheme has to shared with the EU on agreed terms.( since this is mainly why these passports are selling) -EU would reserve to revoke to passport if appropriate evidence be found .(this means it will be a separate type of passport) ( like the Portuguese golden visa) -economic sanctions against member states found breaching of the terms agreed upon when found guilty of allowing in undesired candidates. -make investment only on government owned/supervised projects to prevent inter-selling assets . This is keep most of the funds coming while limiting those smelly socks away. True win-win don't ya think?
In Spain and only until the end 2021, jews only with at least old Spanish roots can apply for citizenship, and as far as I know, golden visas in Spain require clean criminal records in the countries where you have lived in the last 5 years and there are very strict rules on tax fraud and money laundering. Also you have to go in person to an embassy to get the visa at least once.
Cypriot here. I have no issue with Golden Passports. If they pass a Europol check I'm OK with it. I don't mind seeing a few foreign billionaires round town. Uncontrolled immigration is what I have a massive problem with.
The Irish and Italian examples make sense in societies that have seen so many citizens have emigrated in the past for a variety of reasons; conflict and economic primarily. It means families can retain the right to return. I think it is a very generous gesture and have personally benefitted from it in the case of Ireland.
Most Irish descendends are in america and dont wish to return, Italy situation is difference due to most of them being in Argentina and Brazil, so the Italian consul make sure the process is painfully slow and bureaucratic.
JoelJames2 initially setting up a coal and steel cooperation then a economic cooperation after a despot decided he wanted to rule the world is a bit convenient interpretation to attributing the EU to saving Europe from another National Socialist leader although there is always Vahofstat.
Isn't it funny how out of all the countries, it is the only two Commonwealth members who have the controversial scheme? Also, I believe the Spanish scheme for citzitenship for descendents of Jews who fled, ceased sometime in either 2018 or 19.
@@rspanditz6411 I'm sure the politicians "Genuine londoners" voted into power have *nothing* to do with this schema and that they are completely powerless to change the situation because some nefarious external entity. That... or you are a xenophobe who is blaming others for your own problems instead of trying to solve them.
@@vinicioimbriani3482 Almost certainly a republic. These days monarchies only really survive because they've been around for soooo long, establishing a new one, or rather, resurrecting an old one, would likely not be accepted.
I think a golden visa/citizenship scheme makes sense if not only you make the person invest money into the development of the country, but you also make them live in your country for a while. And maybe if the price tag isn’t so hefty, it won’t be a rich person only thing as well, it could be a middle class thing too. The criminal background check thing is also very important, especially if it’s someone like Jho Low who messed up so much in the past, to prevent him from getting off clean, but if it’s something insignificant like a parking ticket I think it shouldn’t count (I think those are also part of your record, no?). Otherwise, I think of golden passports positively, as they are a legal way that is easier to become a citizen of more than one country, especially if you believe in European values for instance.
Imagine getting mad at countries for bringing investments into their country through golden citizenship/visa AND also getting mad at them for not accepting as many immigrants. I say this as an immigrant.
In Spain you can get your citizenship by living 10 years in the country, however this period is reduced to just 2 if you are from Portugal, Andorra, any Iberoamerican country, the Philippines, Ecuatorial Guinea or descendant from the Jews that were exiled from Spain.
As a person who has to pay a whack of money for the privilege of visiting my family in the EU for a few days, it seems to me that a golden passport is much the same thing, just on a grander scale.
If you're interested in experiencing how good is an EU Passport is, the UK is offering a 30 day, Black Friday trial, which is valid until the end of the month.
Some countries need to tie up their ancestor route too, Poland and Italy can go back a lot of generations (I have both). Also Ireland can go on for ever as long as the person before is on the foreign birth registry.
Other way round, and it's not so easy. You have to have Rabbinical approval (synagogues don't issue passports!) and you have to remain resident in Portugal.
Each country has the right to decide who it wants to have as a citizen, and that the EU considers the citizenship in its member states as "its" doesn't matter, it's a problem for the EU, not the members.
@@dougijcw9758 Thats not gonna happen, just because the UK left the Union. Your country never was trully part of the EU, British governments of all flavors have sought exemptions from every major EU treaty for 25 years. And even your former prime minister Winston Churchill supported a United States of Europe, albeit with Britain an ally outside it. Just good luck with the CANZUK trade block and I wish that we succeed in our different paths
I'm still happy despite not being rich. I have a nice phone, a studio apartment, a computer, a comfy chair, and curry. Compared to all humans from the past including the middle ages, the high middle ages, caveman times, ancient times, etc ... we be in the top 1%. Quality of life going up for everybody - every year. Neoliberalism FTW baby!
So, I'd like to see a story how you can get citizenship in a country whose actions are *not* frowned upon by the E.U. [and therefore likely to be overturned]. Is there something like the "path to citizenship" which still exists in the U.S. despite its much-maligned immigration policies?
Bulgaria also does that, but investors don't wanna buy it because of high-level corruption, lol. It's like 100k investment in a business in Bulgaria and u get it.
9:34 Female too, but there are many more rules if it's an administrative case. If those rules aren't followed, then the person has to hire a lawyer. I had to pay one to argue that my mother was my mother, and because she had the right to have her Italian citizenship recognised, so did I.
It’s a tough question, many people want to become citizens of the EU for many different reasons, not always good as highlighted by your video. Who do we accept then? Refugees? Economic migrants? Students who has previously studied here? Highly skilled professional? Or in this case wealthy investors? It seems a little unfair to say a highly skilled person who’s been working here and paying taxes can’t apply for UK/EU citizenship but someone fleeing economic hardship and has no/little skills apart from a desire for a better life can? You have to disenfranchise someone, the poor unskilled individual or the rich/skilled individual. If you don’t then you essentially have an open border. What I think we need is a more revolving door policy, make it easier to come into a country for work, tourism or education but make it much easier to remove those individuals for any crimes or aspect of character (money laundering) that make then undesirable. As this stops the need for “Golden Passports” as people are more freely able to travel. Also to stop the argument that foreign workers are taking a citizens job they should have to pay additional taxes and these taxes should be paid directly to citizens.
Skilled immigration and refugee or asylum claims are not dependent on each other. I don't know why you are making out the amount of skilled immigrants is reduced the more refugees that are taken. Also, each country within the EU handles immigration differently. Immigration through descent is also an option. There's plenty of immigration routes. If they are paying tax then why would foreign workers be taxed more? Make it make sense.
It's next to impossible to revoke citizenship in most countries, you certainly can't do that just for a crime. In few countries it can be done for joining up with a foreign military to fight against your own country, other such treason type things. It's simpler if a person was fraudulently naturalized, then such a person simply never was a citizen to begin with.
@@aleksandersuur9475 agreed, a lot peoples problem is once is some is in a country it's incredibly hard to ever remove from (talking about immigrants not "naturally born citizens"), thus making many people reluctant on accepting people in
@@ShaneToob Agreed skilled immigration and refugee or asylum are not related directly. My point is how open do you have your border and then open to who and how many? People may be willing to accept in migrants or refugees if its 10,000's but 100,000's that becomes a different question and then if it's 1,000,000's that really changes the scope. So if we accept there is a limit to the amount of immigration a country will/can accept without the right being ignited (see the whole of Europe and the USA), then question is who do we accept? People who need our help or people who can help us? Regarding the taxes this is based on the premise that any immigration not matter how big all small is never universally welcomed (overall it maybe welcomed but there's still that 1 in 100 person who is unhappy) and the bigger it is the more negative of a response it gets. The aim of this is to give people a tangible benefit to immigration.... something they can touch and feel and this reduce the negative view of immigration and thus allow more people to come into the country. I hope this answers some of your queries.
I don’t see anything wrong with purchasing citizenship. In terms of criminals doing so, it’d be hilarious if that meant that they were handed their passports but a background check was done and when they entered the EU they were flagged and sent to jail... Part of becoming a citizen should of course be that the government accepts responsibility for enforcing justice upon that person for any misdeeds they have undertaken. So I don’t see a problem with purchasing I see the problem that that country is then letting a criminal go free where they wouldn’tve done for a criminal that was their own citizen beforehand. Obviously that’s a terribly unjust thing to do.
I want my golden passports to be actually golden if I paid so much for them.
If you have that much money to waste, then you can plate it with gold after obtaining it.
You don't understand... the passports in Cyprus and Malta were FOR FREE. You invest 2+ million. Get your passport. You are now Cypriot/Maltese. Now sell that asset you paid 2M for to your brother for 2M. You get your 2M back, your brother pays 2M and becomes Cypriot. Now HE sells it to the next person. And so on and so on.
@@steffenscheibler5849 The passport requires 2 million though in the first place
@@steffenscheibler5849
You can't move money around for free. Moving that much money back and forth is gonna accrue a lot of fees, which is how financial services make the bulk of their money.
People pay a small fortune to get it, but it's worthless for Brexiters...
It sounds like the problem isn’t the golden visa/passport scheme itself. The fundamental issue is lack of due diligence and enforcement of due diligence. This could apply to all visa types, not just golden ones.
As usual, Money makes things much easier for the rich.
Lines for the average Joe, A Goddamn Gold Jet for the rich.
Saw a meme recently that said something to the effect of "any law where the punishment is a fine, makes it a crime to be poor."
@@jgt_ 25% for a poor person barely getting by is gonna hurt a lot more than someone who has billions to waste.
There's a poverty line to fall under, there's no slightly less rich line
@@jgt_
I'm not saying they'll do it willingly. I'm saying it won't matter as much to them.
If you need 100$ to make ends meet, getting fined 25$ might be devastating.
If you have 10000$, getting fined 2500$ hurts but you still have 7500$, well above what you need to live comfortably.
It’s not nonsense, it’s just that you aren’t thinking.
@@jgt_ It's not nonsense, but it is a little more complicated than either of you are saying. It's certainly more fair (and useful) to fine according to net worth, or at least, income, but it's true that even proportionate fines have a higher chance to hurt the poor than the rich. Rich people, or at least, people with a large income, do not generally live at the same level of quality and quantity as poor people do, and just save the rest - they generally do spend a sizeable chunk of their money, just still not proportionately to the amount poor people spend - they leave more room for security. Consequently, a poor person living paycheck to paycheck cannot decide to spend less, while a rich person generally can, even if they have regular expenses like mortgages or insurance or such. It might still hurt, indeed it probably will, just not to the extent that it might hurt a poor person.
This is lessened if who counts as poor in a country isn't _that_ poor, since then the expenses are more proportional, but in countries where some people really just scrape by, a proportional fine is not proportional in impact. There is simply a lower limit on how much money you need to survive, regardless of proportionality, and a fine (proportional or no) might make you cross it if you're poor, but not if you're rich.
Person: "Cyprian and with it EU citizenship please"
Cyprus: "Hmm.. But it says here you have a serious criminal background. Money laundering, fraud..."
Person: "I am very rich"
Cyprus: "Come right in! And bring your family as well"
@Anonymous individual
Summary
EU=4th Reich
EU evil>Nazi evil
Hmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm
@@PrivateMcPrivate Don´t be silly to the point to compare 2 DIFERENT things.
@@xjeaanwf3761 comparing and contrasting different things is a skill many people sorely lack nowadays.
Either the 1st reply is a troll or a huge idiot
Jami When actual ISIS criminals violate the greek or cyptiot borders with the help of Turkay, EU NGO welcome them and trick the customs agents to help them enter the EU where some of them have already commited terrorist attacks.
that part at the end about Irish and Italian citizenship actually helped me out. my mom's family is descended from italian immigrants in the past century, and my dad's family is descended from Irish immigrants in the past century as well (I'm an
American). we actually have good family records of our ancestry.
🙄a lot of countries have "right of return" or accelerated naturalisation for people who can prove their grandparents came from there. It's just that some add in a language requirement too. Google it, people!
nice :)
This is a very hot topic in Portuguese politics. Specially because the state says that this attracts international investment, but in reality this only served to rise the price of real estate driving people out of the city's.
The term "Golden Passport" makes me imagine a Michel Barnier/Willy Wonka hybrid welcoming people to Brussels via song.
Trenton do you think Barnier can keep of the drink long enough to sing anything. Hes warming his hands now as Belfast burns because of his demands in the EUs Northern Ireland protocol.
You mean his demands that UK should do what they then signed in a contraict?
This comment makes me think you're a Brexiteer, so just dislike the EU.
@@ernestrogen4639 Hmm. It wasn't Barnier who created the need for a protocol now was it.
@@bradavon - Haha, Brexit was a daft idea the Torries slapped on a bus,
I think golden passports are ok but should be imposed some minimum security standards on EU level.
250K for one passport is not OK, bare-minimum should be 1M, and only for the core-family (father, mother, children), but I am also OK with GOLDEN PASSPORTS
Oh look, a video in TLDR EU with no "Brexit" in the title.....aaaaaaand "Brexit" Is the first word in the video.
Quelle surprise. This channel is shyte, always was , and forever ever will be with Soros money.
@@PhilipHughes-wp3vm
Lol wtf?
Lies ! The first word after the intro is actually "With" :)
Brexit does no longer exist were out free yipppeeeeee
No it was “hello”
THis is totally random: Do you use the same wig for von der Leyen, Theresa May, and BoJo in the animation?
I think the Theresa May wig was different but now you mention it, the Von der Leyen and BoJo wigs do look very similar
Unfortunately it’s not just an Italian male ancestor, it’s an Italian male ancestor (or now thankfully allowed for female ancestor too who was born before 1948 if person goes through Italian court system) who left Italy after 1861, was not naturalized in a foreign country before 1912 and whose descendants never renounced Italian citizenship before the birth of the subsequent generation. It’s actually quite a tedious process but definitely worth it 😊🇮🇹
PALE MALE actually not only the applicant but also any ancestor in the line of Italian ascent if born to an Italian woman prior to Jan 1, 1948. If this is the situation (what I wrote) then yes, you must file with an Italian tribunal if you are deriving citizenship from only an Italian woman whose children were born before 1948 in your Italian line. Even though the Italian government does not send lawyers to defend such cases anymore, the administrative procedure through the consulates in getting Italian citizenship for someone whose family is in such a situation is not permitted. Italian consulates won’t process these applications and therefore one must file with tribunale ordinario di roma to claim citizenship this way. The outcome while highly probable for an approval is not even guaranteed. You are talking about a case with females in the line of ascent whose children and subsequent generations (including the applicant) were born after January 1, 1948 which does not even touch upon the issues of this “1948 rule” so it’s a different category of cases what you refer to
PALE MALE I see. Well good luck! But for the consulate to process can’t have any female ancestors who gave birth to subsequent generation born prior to 1948 (have to do tribunal). If that’s not your situation then it’s nice to have the ability to do it via the consulate, but I’ve found that the court cases are actually quicker than the administrative ones in consulate! At least for people of Italian descent in northeast USA. (NY consulate has a 2 year wait, crazy!)
PALE MALE not easy at all!
The whole process feels like a nightmare, in 2020 I got a letter for my landlord saying her itslian citizenship was approved, she applied in 2008.
There should be European rules for this. Fine to become a European citizen; however, you gotta stick to European laws and if we find out your money has been acquired in ways that are illegal in Europe, it should be confiscated and you should go to jail.
That ought to weed out the bad seeds.
Should we then take away the nationality from Criminal EU citizens?
@@izidrew Nope. Just apply the laws; they should work for everyone. Today's criminal can be tomorrow's productive citizen.
Clearly the EU needs to be empowered to crack down much harder on corruption. There are far too many instances of corruption in recent years in certain eastern and southern European countries.
Perhaps a dedicated European court and investigatory arm (a new branch of Europol, for instance) devoted entirely to political corruption.
@@ems7623 the most corupt country the UK has left the EU
Careful before Europe itself is asked to return loot from its colonial past 😂
Buying residency is OK.
Citizenship = no way in hell.
If you reside for long enough in a country, you can usually naturalise. Which is easier to accept, since you've spent years living in the country.
@@Adderkleet there are some hurdles to go from residencies to citizenship.
Because residency only means you are allowed to reside in that one specific country for the long term. You don't get most of the rights as those as citizens, not any of the rights from the EU
@@Adderkleet you don’t need to actually live in the specific country in order to get citizenship
E.g. you only need to stay a few days each year for continuous 5 years to get one in Ireland , Portugal has similar things with additional language requirements
@@Adderkleet
This reminds me of that guy who lived in Switzerland for like 40 years only to be denied citizenship again and again
I thought this was about Bulgaria, as citizenship here can be bought as well. I'm wondering why you didn't include Bulgaria?
I'm pretty sure Bulgaria is also the cheapest option out there too. Though, it may that the Bulgarian thing is an investment.
The Cyprus method is quicker and gets you a passport right away. The Bulgarian system has an extra step- you get residency first, then increase your investment to get the passport.
EDIT: additionally, with the Bulgarian method you have to actually go to Bulgaria multiple times during the process to complete certain bureaucratic necessities. Not everyone wants to do this.
As well Bulgaria gives a lot of passports to Macedonians if they say/change their ethnicity to Bulgars
So there goes that
@@jaceladag the price for Bulgaria is €512 000
Bulgaria too sexy.
The Italian citizenship is not required to be Male ancestor anymore, and can be from any generation
Really? Because I might have one about 5-10 generations ago! :p
British people be like: Would you like to buy our citizienship dlc for just $3.99?
£3.99
Butter knife license sold separately.
BRITISH CITIZENSHIP GOT SO CHEAP :D ...
The value of a UK passport has dropped a lot very recently.
Imma’ wait for the Steam Summer Sale
Oh their scheme is taking the piss
The Malta one if u get all Ur funds and paper work u can be Maltese citizen in like 8 months
Yeah should just come in a dinghy and get citizenship and voting rights it handed to them for nothing instead!
@@nullvoid564 Yes, yes they should. 😊
Although ideally arriving by a safer form of transport of course
@@cameroff Abolish taxes too.
we should confiscate resources from the local councils and media corporations to pay for that transport and those who want to house these migrants can provide their own resources.
All I saw was "$2.7 billion from IMDB"
Makes me happy that myself and family have got dual Irish /British citizenship , good luck to those looking to get theirs.
I don’t have any Irish family :(
Pixel yes you do
@@chrismurray3038 how? I'm in the same boat.. If I didn't have children I would have moved to EU a long time ago.
@@2036scott don't let the door hit you on the way out!
Now that the major seller of EU citizenships is no longer in the EU the EU commission is finally cracking down on the issue without the UK vetoing the interference in it's money laundering empire.
uk money laundering ,where is your proof ,our money is not euro .
lol
@@XENONEOMORPH1979 how about Russian oligarchs becoming lords and owning half of London? not sing enough for ya? UK(and it's overseas territories) is the world capital of money laundering. You can actually read about it if you just try and look. EUR has nothing to do with it.
xeno neomorph LONDON is known for hiding money. From Russians to Chinese. They all hide money in expensive London apartments. The uk is one big laundry mat
@@XENONEOMORPH1979 Watch the documentary 'The Spider's Web: Britain's Second Empire'. You can find it in full on TH-cam.
In Greece, particularly in Athens, golden visa had become a plague. Chinese "investors" have bought so many apartments in the Athenian coastline and elsewhere (they go for the pricier regions) and as a result rent prices have skyrocketed all over Athens, it's very hard to find anything to rent at a reasonable price. If something made the Greek recession a bit more tolerable was cheap housing, now that one is gone too, everything (commodities, services and housing) has become as expensive as in western/northern Europe if not more expensive while we need to live with a fraction of their salaries.
One of my buddies was given Luxembourgish citizenship merely by proving one of his ancestors many generations ago was from Luxembourg. Now he has his EU passport
The law in Spain that provided citizenship to descendants of jews (sephardim) already ended. Pending cases are being completed and solved but no one can apply via this law since 2019.
sadly.. they do have the right if they are really descendants of Sephardic Jews
This issue plays into the importance of Brexit & why it was so necessary. The British people should not have a unacceptable third party telling them how foreigners may become citizens. Thus, Malta & Cyprus should be telling the EU where to shove it. They should be free to manage their own citizenship program as they see fit as independent democracies. That being said, I imagine we can all agree ‘selling’ citizenship to corrupt people and/or known criminals is ridiculous, BUT that’s a domestic issue, up to the people of their respective countries to tolerate or to not tolerate. As a Canadian, I do not want the US telling my country who can become a Canadian citizen, or how to do it, just because we belong to the same free trade agreement & security/intelligence group.
Is it me or Cyprus looks like it's constantly in a dab
so not only me had that impression
More or less.
I would say only ancestors scheme or naturalization should work. There should be no way to buy "the rights' like that since the level of corruption outside of the EU is horrible.
Citizenship and residency having a price is a direct and unavoidable result of legal immigration being hard to achieve. If you want to stop countries from having these kinds of schemes, you'll need to either expand external migration, or take away immigration control from individual EU member states (in the same way that US member states have no say over immigration).
My grandfather on my biological fathers side (and his father, my great-grandfather) was an Italian citizen. I might be eligible to become an Italian citizen and thus by extension remain a European citizen as well 😊.
A lot of Brazilians with Italian heritage are doing this. I have a friend from Brazil with Italian passport who now lives in Spain.
I'd rather have straight Italian citizenship than EU citizenship. The EU works half as well as the Leauge of Nations did.
@@Gr3nadgr3gory you can't have italian citizenship without the eu one. If you're a citizen of any of the 27 member states, than you are automatically a EU citizen.
The EU does work, which is also the reason why it still exists, and the league of nations doesn't
@@wandafisch4411 really? Because I've heard member states complain about the EU all the time. One country even got fed up enough that they left the damn union. I've heard it described as the fourth Reich.
@@Gr3nadgr3gory if you listen to people on the internet or here on TH-cam, they are a small and really loud minority. The problem of the EU is that it is easier for politicians to blame the EU for things than themselves, and many people believe them because they don't know anything about the EU
9:42 The male requirement was dropped for people born after 1948.
But the descendants of women who left Italy before 1948 or who, because of the old law, lost their citizenship due to marrying a non-Italian, still have to hire a lawyer to get it.
@@kauemoura Yes that is right, but I am talking about women who have not lost it.
@@kauemoura Laoshi!
I was expecting you to mention Portugal, our Golden visa is much cheaper than those ahah
a golden Visa is not the same as a passport. The visa limits you to Portugal, a passport does not.
Exactly haha
@@swanky_yuropean7514 Portugal golden visa only requires you to stay 2 weeks per year for 5 years in Portugal to get Portuguese citizenship
@@dr.winner2516 Don't you also have to take a language and "knowledge of the country" test?
@@yangj08 Yes, I was talking about the residency requirements only
I don't get why this is wrong. If EU members can give passports for free to lets say refugees or people who happen to be born there. Than why not sell them too? It's smart or shall we just continue to give things for free?
9:35 holy cow I can become Italian just like that?
Unfortunately yes...
Or if you can afford to hire a lawyer and you only are only able to prove descent from a female italian you can go through teir courts using their equality law to gain citizenship, it's basically paying the court fees for some stuff to be rubber stamped as it's an established precedent
Well ask Argentinians…many of their ancestors are Italians and they easily the italian citizenship…
yes, its stupid.
EU passports should have a standardised system in place regardless of which EU nation is being applied in.
Like with most EU standards there should be a minimum requirement. Countries should be able to have stricter standards, but not lower then minimum.
It could be partly solved by adding a time requirement to the application process as with naturalisation.
EU: Malta, Cyprus please stop!
Meanwhile in Austria: want a passport for 5M €?
You can get a D7 visa from Portugal if you have 20k in the bank and became resident. After five years you can apply for passport. Or invest about 300,000 in residential property and do the same.
Portuguese one requires u to spend seven days yr in the country and if u want to eventually apply for citizenship u need to speak the language to some degree demonstrate some link to the community
At least u need to make some effort
The Malta one if u pay up and get documents in place u are a citizen in 8 months
Golden passports are great! They allow rich people to get citizenship without having to do a dangerous boat trip, so they save lives.
So that's where those Chinese billionaires are coming from. Interesting...
admit it everyone of us checked the pictures when he said a pin for every single eu country to see if the UK was in it lol
and was it?
5:14 we have those also in Latvia (and most probably also Estonia and Lithuania)
The baltic passports obtain is a investment of 100k euros in property to get a settlement visa or 500k for a citizenship. I know as I have a wife from Russia we married for 3 years and decided to move to EU in near future me and our daughter we are a EU citizens but not my wife... we been looking for an easy way to obtain but we not really able to invest these money so we go by the hard way the family reunion scheme(((
@@SoLoWeJGR umm a lot of western european nations have a right to family EA your wife can become European
@@bestgameplay831 well I agree with that but to become an European citizen you need at least 5 years of settlement in the country. Amd holding a temporary settlement visa for 3 years continuously and 2 years of permanent settlement in the country you issued the I'd card. But of course the golden passport is a easy way to get it but not everybody have the money to invest.
And about my wife she will get a permanent settlement visa for 1 years (in Lithuania after she will obtain the family reunion visa which she must hold for at least 2 years continuously)which after she able to do the citizenship.
Haha, pay 2.2 mil € or just give up 500k€ to Bulgaria and get the same benefits...
Isn’t just residency that you get in Bulgaria?
@@edipires15 im pretty sure it's citizenship too
0:39 best plug in the history of the channel.
My law professor almost got fired for being involved with this haha
Yes, Golden passports should become a thing of the past. But also the other EU member States should shrink their scheme of naturalization, reducing to a maximum of two generations born abroad this right (specially talking to you Italy).
And I say this as an Italian European that lives in a non-EU country, against potential future descendants’ interests.
Paradoxically you can easily have an Italian passport if your grand grand parents are Italian and you never been in Italy or know anything about Italy. But if you are born in Italy from not Italian relatives you need to wait till your 18 although your parents are permanently settle in the country.
@@Fedenija Can be further than great great grandparents. the last Italian born relative just need to have been alive after Italy became a kingdom in the 1800s, then no generation naturalise before the next, and didn't pass from women before 1948, although the latter can be fought in court.
@Fede Greco as result you see tons of Argentinians, Uruguayans, Brazilians and Venezuelans emigrating to other EU States with an Italian passport, making us responsible of all the consequences in front of our partners.
Hearing also claims (and complains sometimes) by Spanish people that say there are a lot more of Italians (around 200k) in Spain than Spanish (around 20k) in Italy... but surprise surprise, the vast majority of them have dual citizenship, can you guess which passports do they hold (other than the Italian one)?? ;-)
@SamJonesMediaHUD in the long term will turn unsustainable, can you imagine in the next decades how many American citizens (referring the the whole continent) could potentially become ita citizens? There could be 4-5 times more Italian citizens from abroad than from our peninsula. This could really ruin our relation with the other EU States, really hope they will begin to force us for a change as they are doing now with Malta and Cyprus about golden passports.
@@LoeZack I’m guilty of this. I had a Polish grandfather and Italian grandmother. I was born in UK. I have British, Polish and Italian passport. I guess grandparents isn’t too far back? Haha.
At least booking an appointment for Italian citizenship is difficult if your parent didn’t register you. There would be many more millions of it was simpler to get an appointment. Most consulates around the world are backed up for years. Although you can travel to Italy and do it in the space of a few months.
And again, only the rich have the money to do this, not the poor people trying to run from wars or from hunger.
It is useful for people (like me) who have european ancestry but just miss out on claiming descendent status. My great grandparents and grandparents are British/French/Dutch but I am unable to claim anything from any of them.
I also dont have a spare 2mil euros either though so rip.
If the ancestry is so far away... maybe there’s nothing to claim then...
5:15 Well shit, I didn't know my nation - Latvia and neighboring Estonia were no longer part of the EU :D And Latvia also has the Investor residency bullcrap.
corruption
plain corruption
Portugal are now cheapest as they have brought it down from €500,000 to €280,000
I am originally Cypriot but why would you spend €2.2m when you can get the same for nearly 10X cheaper, makes no sense
I can get this for you through my property business if interested, as well as passport and citizenship in most countries
Feedback for the merch store: A SEARCH BUTTON!
"every single eu country" yea, except for hungary. thanks...
please make a video on, money laundering schemes in UK and how UK ends up with laundered money and why UK doesn't return the laundered money.
And Luxembourg 😉
Luxembourg, Ireland, Netherlands …
Not sure about golden passports, it just makes the countries ( and EU) less democratic because money talks and buys influence.
As a UK citizen I do object to having my EU citizenship arbitrarily removed by the UK government and having to apply for visas if I want to stay in Schengen countries longer than 90 days in any 180 after 3112 20. I would willingly pay to return to the status quo of freedom of travel in the Schengen area, as long as the payment wasn’t to the UK government.
I just wish I had the money for one of the investor schemes.
On principal, I think that the four freedoms should be a global thing - essentially freedom of movement should be a fundamental human right. But when it's not, it's not right that having money allows you to sidestep these rules. If we can't have a truly level playing field, at least a more level one is better.
I hope that one day I can live enough to see the world become more like that, people from poorer countries being treated in the airport as humans beings not pieces of garbage.
When so many countries are denying entry of refugees who need a safe haven it does seem to be somewhat immoral to provide that, and more, on the basis of cash alone.
That having been said, I can also see why some countries might resist having the EU tell them who they can and cannot give residency/citizenship to. It seems the EU needs to look at a two tier EU citizenship, an automatic EU citizenship by birth or marriage (which gives free movement within the EU), while allowing countries to give a wider citizenship on whatever basis they think appropriate without those people gaining automatic freedom of movement within the EU (to some extent, this is what a golden residency would give, which is somewhat different to a golden citizenship).
For one, the designers of these golden passport (and investment-residency) schemes know exactly what they're doing. They're also well aware that the EU citizenship these passports bring are the main draw. No oligarch wakes up in the morning thinking, _gee, wouldn't it be nice to be Cypriot and live within artillery-striking distance of the TRNC_ .
If you only end up being able to buy citizenship that doesn't give you access to the rest of the EU, then there's no point pissing that money away in these countries. In that case you're better off going to the Caribbean island countries, which at least give you visa-free access to most of Europe.
Also, while I'm not opposed to it, multiple classes of citizenship seem like one of those things most Europeans would be against, seeing as how that literally makes some people second-class citizens.
@@awijaya2116 All of that may be true, but one can also then understand why the EU might be upset at Cyprus and Malta making money from a scheme that is selling an asset of the EU rather than merely an asset of Cyprus or Malta.
I can totally understand that what is actually being sold is EU citizenship, then why should that be at the discretion of a couple of small individual countries within the EU, why should that not be a decision that the EU collectively makes?
@@Hfil66 Hey, you won't see me arguing against that. Neither will the countries of origin of the purchasers of these golden passports - keep in mind, no country wants to suffer capital flight, and these golden passports facilitate just that. The only proponents of golden passports are the states issuing them, and the ones purchasing them. Everyone else is at best ambivalent towards the idea.
Which Residency is the cheapest? Paraguay?
Golden Passports are an income source. I don't think that should be forbidden in itself. However, there should be a few rules:
1.) For anyone who gets a passport there has to be made a background check. Same for the money that is used. (We don't want wanted murderers or bloody money)
2.) When a passport is sold, all member states should get something of the money. This is because an EU citizen can travel freely within the EU. Therefore to rights that are sold belong to all countries
That being said, I'd rather not have it at all than have it done badly
The U.K. sells passports to the rich too. Where is the video on that? lol
Through in a few more pounds and can be sir as well.
@@jimgraham6722 But that does not make sense anywhere in the world where people have moved on from the knights' era.
@@Robert89349 Doesn't make sense to me either, but some people love that mediaeval stuff.
It's not worth it A person who got that much money Has no interest in Europe
8:54 This is the core of the problem right here. You get European Union-wide benefits for the passport, but the passports are administered separately in each country.
As I understand it, if you are from one of 59 countries, including 5 Caribbean nations that sell passports for 1/10th the price & you invest in for example the Portuguese Golden Visa you secure virtually identical rights to the people buying a Maltese or Cypriot or Bulgarian citizenship save for the travel benefits of the passport that secures immediate visa-free access to 3 or 4 of the most difficult countries to secure visa access to, by which I mean Australia, the USA, Canada & New Zealand.
The worst crime anyone can commit is to be poor.
I remember a documentary where a researcher went to every country in the EU and managed to get a credible fake passport.
find it and post it here
Calling it a "scheme" then asking if we think it's ok to participate in it sounds a bit rhetorical. This "scheme" has popped up in many countries in many forms over the last 100 years so I cannot be surprised that it is still going strong. To me, if you can get citizenship by showing you have assets to sustain yourself and wait a few years as a resident, it is not different than paying a million bucks to get de-facto citizenship
Anyone seen the new requirements for immigration to the UK? The home secretary's own parents would not have met the financial/educational requirements. Anyone who does would go to far more attractive and lucrative countries!
You dont even need an investor visa, if your income is legit and legal you can apply as self employed.
I had no idea Germany (and others) provided this scheme for descendents of Jews, in an attempt to right some wrongs. That's pretty wholesome.
@Claudio Diov Perhaps because they were forcibly removed in the worst circumstances possible?
@Claudio Diov we owe them a lot. Our country killed their families just because of their religion. We are descendants of these people who killed them so we should be better than them right? If they wanna come back to their family homes then let them come. They are the German people who fled because of the country. Show some respect sir.
@Claudio Diov Would you immediately come running back to a country that literally slaughtered your people like clockwork?
@Claudio Diov While I agree that after a certain number of years or generations, there should eventually be a cut-off - with direct sufferers from the Holocaust still being alive, I do not see it being time for that.
Also, since you're clearly utterly unaware: Those who fled Germany and pretty much *had* to take another citizenship were, for a long time, not ALLOWED to regain their old citizenship. And und until the 70s, citizenship was passed along the male line in Germany (no joke), which posed an additional problem for women that had fled.
Being allowed to easily gain back their citizenship is not just in response to the injustices of the nazi era - it's also in response to other injustices of the post-war era, and is rather recent.
@Claudio Diov tbh you´re acting like a freak who´s obsessed with voiding their rights.
what is worst, a handful of dodgy Chinese millionaires? or 100 of thousands of africans / muslims migrants (Every years! over the past 30 years) among whom a large proportion will not integrate and not respect the local custom? I bet most EU citizens would not want either, and especially the latter, which has had much more serious consequences. Once again the EU is good at giving lessons.
It may be an unpopular opinion but I think golden passports can be a good thing provided the following conditions are met:- (please read before disliking)
-stringent security checks of criminal record/etc at point of entry and also cross verification by another member state.
-any financial gains from the scheme has to shared with the EU on agreed terms.( since this is mainly why these passports are selling)
-EU would reserve to revoke to passport if appropriate evidence be found .(this means it will be a separate type of passport) ( like the Portuguese golden visa)
-economic sanctions against member states found breaching of the terms agreed upon when found guilty of allowing in undesired candidates.
-make investment only on government owned/supervised projects to prevent inter-selling assets .
This is keep most of the funds coming while limiting those smelly socks away.
True win-win don't ya think?
It would be fine for getting residence in the EU (like the golden Visa) but not full citizenship
@@edipires15 True voting rights shouldn't be up for sale.
In Spain and only until the end 2021, jews only with at least old Spanish roots can apply for citizenship, and as far as I know, golden visas in Spain require clean criminal records in the countries where you have lived in the last 5 years and there are very strict rules on tax fraud and money laundering. Also you have to go in person to an embassy to get the visa at least once.
Cypriot here. I have no issue with Golden Passports. If they pass a Europol check I'm OK with it. I don't mind seeing a few foreign billionaires round town. Uncontrolled immigration is what I have a massive problem with.
Right, if you're rich, you're welcome, but if you're poor or (yuck) in need, p*as off. 🙄
I had kind of already assumed that immigration policies are much more lenient if you bring enough money with you.
The Irish and Italian examples make sense in societies that have seen so many citizens have emigrated in the past for a variety of reasons; conflict and economic primarily. It means families can retain the right to return. I think it is a very generous gesture and have personally benefitted from it in the case of Ireland.
Imagine all eligible Irish citizens try to come back to Ireland for living...
Most Irish descendends are in america and dont wish to return, Italy situation is difference due to most of them being in Argentina and Brazil, so the Italian consul make sure the process is painfully slow and bureaucratic.
Yes. They should be able.
And it all started as a mutual trading association.
Well, it really started as a “fuck, we can’t do this again” *gestures wildly at smoking ruins*
JoelJames2 initially setting up a coal and steel cooperation then a economic cooperation after a despot decided he wanted to rule the world is a bit convenient interpretation to attributing the EU to saving Europe from another National Socialist leader although there is always Vahofstat.
It was never meant to stop there, as a
“Trading Association”...
aoilpe not openly no, but that's what the EEC was sold to us as.
@@flyerh
50+ years ago...?
Isn't it funny how out of all the countries, it is the only two Commonwealth members who have the controversial scheme?
Also, I believe the Spanish scheme for citzitenship for descendents of Jews who fled, ceased sometime in either 2018 or 19.
Mafia love Golden Passport, they like London too !
Genuine londoners can't afford a fucking cardboard box in middle o' Road because of these foreigners
@@rspanditz6411 I'm sure the politicians "Genuine londoners" voted into power have *nothing* to do with this schema and that they are completely powerless to change the situation because some nefarious external entity.
That... or you are a xenophobe who is blaming others for your own problems instead of trying to solve them.
You are just jealous that London is one of the richest and wealthiest cities in the world.
@@rspanditz6411 London is a tax haven; they need to allow and be good to foreigners.
Residency is fair play but citizenship should come after a few years I think.
Aye, I'll just wait till we go independent in Scotland.
If Scotland became independent, it would be a Republic or a Monarchy?
@@vinicioimbriani3482 Almost certainly a republic. These days monarchies only really survive because they've been around for soooo long, establishing a new one, or rather, resurrecting an old one, would likely not be accepted.
@@vinicioimbriani3482 probably republic at least at the start
Oooh can I buy a Scottish passport please???? You will need the the money once you leave 🤣
@Keys & Locks yep...a top nation
I think a golden visa/citizenship scheme makes sense if not only you make the person invest money into the development of the country, but you also make them live in your country for a while. And maybe if the price tag isn’t so hefty, it won’t be a rich person only thing as well, it could be a middle class thing too. The criminal background check thing is also very important, especially if it’s someone like Jho Low who messed up so much in the past, to prevent him from getting off clean, but if it’s something insignificant like a parking ticket I think it shouldn’t count (I think those are also part of your record, no?). Otherwise, I think of golden passports positively, as they are a legal way that is easier to become a citizen of more than one country, especially if you believe in European values for instance.
Imagine getting mad at countries for bringing investments into their country through golden citizenship/visa AND also getting mad at them for not accepting as many immigrants. I say this as an immigrant.
Mmmm no you dont
In Spain you can get your citizenship by living 10 years in the country, however this period is reduced to just 2 if you are from Portugal, Andorra, any Iberoamerican country, the Philippines, Ecuatorial Guinea or descendant from the Jews that were exiled from Spain.
the Spanish scheme for citzitenship for descendents of Jews who fled, ceased sometime in either 2018 or 19.
2 million euros to buy EU citizenship..... and we had 17.4 million uninformed Britons remove that existing right from us for free. Yay!
As a person who has to pay a whack of money for the privilege of visiting my family in the EU for a few days, it seems to me that a golden passport is much the same thing, just on a grander scale.
The big difference: You don’t have to leave...
If you're interested in experiencing how good is an EU Passport is, the UK is offering a 30 day, Black Friday trial, which is valid until the end of the month.
I think It shouldn't be about money. It should about mindset.
Some countries need to tie up their ancestor route too, Poland and Italy can go back a lot of generations (I have both). Also Ireland can go on for ever as long as the person before is on the foreign birth registry.
I’m planning to utilise the foreign birth registry route for my children
I can't get my non-EU wife into the UK because of the MIR. These types of stories make my blood boil.
You didn't discuss about the Malta Citizenship by Investment issue. Please be fair, TLDR. 😊🙏👍
Cyprus and Malta: lemme get dat coin bruh
wierd that they grant citezenship for illegal imigrants or let them live here, while being against rich people to buy citezenship
Portugal was the first country to grant EU passport to the Jews who fled during persecution, then Spain followed the scheme, you forgot to mention it.
Other way round, and it's not so easy. You have to have Rabbinical approval (synagogues don't issue passports!) and you have to remain resident in Portugal.
Each country has the right to decide who it wants to have as a citizen, and that the EU considers the citizenship in its member states as "its" doesn't matter, it's a problem for the EU, not the members.
You can get citizenships easily from Portugal and Italy for much less.
Damn didnt know eu passport had this much power yo anyone wanna buy a passport
EU Citizenship is one of the most useful you can get.
Someone else's passport is kind of useless.
@@aleksandersuur9475 you’re smart
@@dougijcw9758 I don't think it will, more likely the United Kingdom will break apart before the EU collapses
@@dougijcw9758 Thats not gonna happen, just because the UK left the Union.
Your country never was trully part of the EU, British governments of all flavors have sought exemptions from every major EU treaty for 25 years. And even your former prime minister Winston Churchill supported a United States of Europe, albeit with Britain an ally outside it. Just good luck with the CANZUK trade block and I wish that we succeed in our different paths
Why leave to get a blue passport when you can get a golden one?
This again shows the inequality between the rich and the rest of us.
I'm still happy despite not being rich. I have a nice phone, a studio apartment, a computer, a comfy chair, and curry. Compared to all humans from the past including the middle ages, the high middle ages, caveman times, ancient times, etc ... we be in the top 1%. Quality of life going up for everybody - every year. Neoliberalism FTW baby!
Supporting the people is supporting the irrelevant.
So, I'd like to see a story how you can get citizenship in a country whose actions are *not* frowned upon by the E.U. [and therefore likely to be overturned]. Is there something like the "path to citizenship" which still exists in the U.S. despite its much-maligned immigration policies?
awesome overview but please also show on Malta's point of view
Bulgaria also does that, but investors don't wanna buy it because of high-level corruption, lol. It's like 100k investment in a business in Bulgaria and u get it.
I don't see a problem with this. For a reasonable sum of money you should be able to live anywhere.
9:34 Female too, but there are many more rules if it's an administrative case. If those rules aren't followed, then the person has to hire a lawyer. I had to pay one to argue that my mother was my mother, and because she had the right to have her Italian citizenship recognised, so did I.
It’s a tough question, many people want to become citizens of the EU for many different reasons, not always good as highlighted by your video.
Who do we accept then?
Refugees?
Economic migrants?
Students who has previously studied here?
Highly skilled professional?
Or in this case wealthy investors?
It seems a little unfair to say a highly skilled person who’s been working here and paying taxes can’t apply for UK/EU citizenship but someone fleeing economic hardship and has no/little skills apart from a desire for a better life can?
You have to disenfranchise someone, the poor unskilled individual or the rich/skilled individual. If you don’t then you essentially have an open border.
What I think we need is a more revolving door policy, make it easier to come into a country for work, tourism or education but make it much easier to remove those individuals for any crimes or aspect of character (money laundering) that make then undesirable. As this stops the need for “Golden Passports” as people are more freely able to travel.
Also to stop the argument that foreign workers are taking a citizens job they should have to pay additional taxes and these taxes should be paid directly to citizens.
Skilled immigration and refugee or asylum claims are not dependent on each other. I don't know why you are making out the amount of skilled immigrants is reduced the more refugees that are taken. Also, each country within the EU handles immigration differently. Immigration through descent is also an option. There's plenty of immigration routes.
If they are paying tax then why would foreign workers be taxed more? Make it make sense.
It's next to impossible to revoke citizenship in most countries, you certainly can't do that just for a crime. In few countries it can be done for joining up with a foreign military to fight against your own country, other such treason type things. It's simpler if a person was fraudulently naturalized, then such a person simply never was a citizen to begin with.
@@aleksandersuur9475 agreed, a lot peoples problem is once is some is in a country it's incredibly hard to ever remove from (talking about immigrants not "naturally born citizens"), thus making many people reluctant on accepting people in
@@ShaneToob Agreed skilled immigration and refugee or asylum are not related directly.
My point is how open do you have your border and then open to who and how many?
People may be willing to accept in migrants or refugees if its 10,000's but 100,000's that becomes a different question and then if it's 1,000,000's that really changes the scope. So if we accept there is a limit to the amount of immigration a country will/can accept without the right being ignited (see the whole of Europe and the USA), then question is who do we accept?
People who need our help or people who can help us?
Regarding the taxes this is based on the premise that any immigration not matter how big all small is never universally welcomed (overall it maybe welcomed but there's still that 1 in 100 person who is unhappy) and the bigger it is the more negative of a response it gets. The aim of this is to give people a tangible benefit to immigration.... something they can touch and feel and this reduce the negative view of immigration and thus allow more people to come into the country.
I hope this answers some of your queries.
I don’t see anything wrong with purchasing citizenship. In terms of criminals doing so, it’d be hilarious if that meant that they were handed their passports but a background check was done and when they entered the EU they were flagged and sent to jail... Part of becoming a citizen should of course be that the government accepts responsibility for enforcing justice upon that person for any misdeeds they have undertaken. So I don’t see a problem with purchasing I see the problem that that country is then letting a criminal go free where they wouldn’tve done for a criminal that was their own citizen beforehand. Obviously that’s a terribly unjust thing to do.