Authorities in Albania have unfolded their plans to introduce the Golden Passports program, which permits internationals to acquire citizenship in this country, provided they make a specific amount of money investment and meet specific requirements.
However, the Citizenship by Investment programs introduced by several European countries have often been criticized for being involved in many unlawful affairs, including money laundering and corruption, despite the fact that they have brought significant benefits to the economy sector, VisaGuide.World reports.
According to a report provided by Balkan Insight, authorities in Albania are planning to start selling Golden Passports to wealthy international investors, despite criticisms that such a scheme goes against EU values and can bring additional difficulties to Albania’s joining to the EU bloc.
However, authorities in Albania previously applied changes to the law on private-public partnerships (PPP) by including such citizenship by investment programs in the law, while currently, the government of Albania is planning to hire private firms in order to promote such programs internationally.
Despite the fact that such a scheme has often been criticized for being an open door to many illegal affairs, authorities in Albania said that there is nothing to worry about, stressing that the issuance of citizenship, as well as security checks, would remain under state jurisdiction.
Albanian government officials have rejected EU criticism regarding the Golden Passport program, stressing that the program will be free of corruption and with the main purpose of attracting international investors.
However, according to the latest progress report of Albania for last year, Brussels considered that the establishment of such a program poses risks to the country’s security, among others.
“On citizenship rights, a provision of the Law on Citizenship adopted in July 2020 may still lead to the establishment of an investors’ citizenship scheme. Such schemes pose risks as regards security, money laundering, tax evasion, terrorist financing, corruption and infiltration by organized crime and are incompatible with the EU acquis. Therefore, as a candidate country, Albania should refrain from developing such a scheme,” the report noted.Albania became an EU candidate in 201; however, the Balkan country is still attempting to become a member of the EU. Recently, the European Union has started accession negotiations with Albania as well as North Macedonia in order for both countries to become part of the bloc, which was considered a historic moment by the European Union Commission President Ursula von der Leyen. However, the launching of such a scheme is considered to cause difficulties to this process after EU authorities are continuously calling on countries that run such schemes to terminate them as soon as possible.