EU Committee Calls for Golden Visas and CIPs to be “Phased Out as Soon as Possible”

In a draft report published yesterday, the European Parliament’s Financial Crimes, Tax Evasion, and Tax Avoidance Committee is calling for the “phasing out” of all EU golden visa and citizenship by investment programs. 

The pretext for the recommendation is these programs’ perceived threat to security in the Union, as well as their potential for “CRS circumvention”.

MEP Ludek Niedermayer of the European People’s Party and Jeppe Kofod from the Socialist and Democratic Party presented the report and urged the closure of all investment migration programs in Europe, stating that the “potential economic benefits” of investment migration programs did not outweigh the risks of money laundering and tax evasion.

Paragraph 91 states that the Committee “concludes that the potential economic benefits of Citizenship by investment (CBI) and residency by investment (RBI) schemes do not offset the serious money laundering and tax evasion risks they present; calls on Member States to phase out all existing CBI or RBI schemes as soon as possible; stresses that, in the meantime, Member States should properly ensure that enhanced Customer Due Diligence on applicants for citizenship or residence through these schemes is duly carried out, as required by the Fifth Anti-Money Laundering Directive (AMLD5); calls on the Commission to monitor rigorously and continuously the proper implementation and application of CDD within the framework of CBI and RBI schemes until they are repealed in each Member State.”

The draft report will now proceed to discussion within the committee, following which a vote will be taken to determine whether the report should proceed to discussion in the European Parliament.

Read the full report here.