825,400 Citizenships were granted in 2017 by EU Member States. How many of these were citizenship by investment applicants? We take a fresh look at the figures and offer our perspective on the recent European Union’s report on the industry.
The Commission to the European Parliament, the Council, the European Economic and Social Committee and the Committee of the Regions issued a Report in January 2019 highlighting the pertinent risks of the RCBI industry to the security of the European Union.
It is important to put this concern that Citizenship Investment programmes are creating an unprecedented influx of non-EU immigrants into EU borders without due scrutiny into context.
Therefore, we first review the latest EU figures issued in March 2019.
How many citizenships were issued by European Union members states?
Based on the latest EUROSTAT figures the number of people acquiring the citizenship of an EU Member State in 2017 was 825,400 which in fact corresponded to a 17 % decrease with respect to 2016. Italy had the highest number of persons acquiring citizenship in 2017.
- Italy- 146,600
- United Kingdom- 123,100 –likely up due to BREXIT
- Germany – 115,400
- France – 114,300
- Sweden – 68,900
- Cyprus – 5,500
- Malta – 2,000
How many were citizenship by investment investors?
Currently the two leading Citizenship by Investment programmes in the European Union are Cyprus and Malta who offer the Cyprus Investor Programme and the Maltese Individual Investment Programme.
In Malta, the Malta Individual Investor Programme attracted a smaller pool of investors from 2017-2018 of which 266 were naturalized.
This means that the Malta Citizenship programme is responsible for the issuance of 0.03% of the total number of passports delivered by EU Member States in 2017
The Cyprus Citizenship Investment Programme in itself initially implemented in 2013 and further revised in subsequent years through updates to the legislation has over the course of the years approved circa 3,300 affluent investors with a Cyprus passport until present date.
For the sake of comparison in 2017, it is estimated that the Cyprus Investment Programme attracted a total of 500 investors.
In real terms, the number of Cyprus passports this would equate to 0.06% of all EU Citizenships acquired as research noted on www.cystat.gov.cy
Read more: Cyprus CBI (Citizenship by Investment) Changes – May 2019
Accuracy and context
Whilst the RCBI industry players and the host countries all agree that close monitoring and tighter regulation is the way forward to prevent abuse, misuse and also to uphold the integrity of the industry, it’s imperative to always see things with perspective.
The heated criticism that the industry has received from opponents’ verge on almost criminalizing the legal frameworks and schemes in place in European Member states that offer affluent investors citizenship and/or residency.
Steps should and are being taken to mitigate any security risks yet arguing that the RCBI industry’s offering poses a substantial risk to the security of the EU, as is presented in the Report (e.g., Clause 4.1. Risks posed by Investor citizenship and residence schemes) is a concern that should be assessed fairly.
Both Malta and Cyprus have a relatively high investment criteria of EUR 1 to 2 million therefore the pool of potential investors is limited. It is therefore important to accurately reflect both the comparative size of the pool of RCBI investors that do invest in EU Member states and present a balanced report on the steps forward to uphold the integrity of the industry which attracts foreign direct investment into the region.
