19/10/23

CITIZENSHIP: EU to monitor visa-free countries more closely amid security concerns

As published on: antiguaobserver.com, Thursday 19 October, 2023.

The European Commission has announced a proposal for a more robust suspension mechanism to visa-free travel, which could implicate Antigua and Barbuda and other citizenship by investment (CBI) countries in the region.

According to IMI Daily’s Christian Henrik Nesheim—a citizenship by investment reporter—one of the grounds they are seeking to include is investor citizenship schemes.

“The proposal delivers on President von der Leyen’s commitment … to the European Council on 20 March 2023 to strengthen the visa suspension mechanism and the monitoring of visa-free countries,” the EU Commission press release stated.

According to the EU, the “evolving geopolitical context” has created a new set of challenges for the region in terms of its visa-free access policy. It said it was crucial that the EU is “well equipped to address situations of abuse of visa-free travel” such as “increased irregular arrivals due to the lack of alignment with the EU’s visa policy, investor citizenship schemes in visa-free countries, or hybrid threats, such as state-sponsored [instrumentalisation] of migrants”.

The sixth report under the visa suspension mechanism stated that outside of expanding the grounds for suspension, it would “strengthen the Commission’s monitoring and reporting obligations to any visa-free countries where challenges are identified”, as well as implementing a new urgency procedure to react faster in cases of “high increase in arrivals or security threats”.

IMI Daily stated that currently certain conditions must be established before any suspension procedure is taken against any third country’s visa-free agreement.

These include a substantial increase (more than 50 percent) in the number of people arriving irregularly from visa-free countries [to the EU], including people found to be staying irregularly and persons refused entry at the border; a substantial increase in the number of asylum applications from countries with low recognition rates (around three to four percent); a decline in cooperation on re-admission; and an increased risk to the security of EU member states.

The report, which was issued in tandem with the press release, highlighted the Caribbean citizenship by investment programmes.

“While the EU respects the right of sovereign countries to decide on their own naturalisation procedures, investor citizenship schemes run by visa-free third countries, which are inconsistent with the principles and conditions underlying the visa exemptions, could present security risks,” the EU report stated.

It went on to add that “the purpose of visa waiver agreements is … not to enable nationals of other visa-required countries to circumvent the EU short-stay visa procedure through the acquisition of citizenship”.

The EU said that it has been talking to Antigua and Barbuda, Dominica, St Kitts and Nevis, Grenada and St Lucia since 2020 to obtain relevant information and data on the CBI programmes which have been classified as high risk to the integrity of the Common Reporting Standard by the OECD, “raising suspicion of possible tax evasion and money laundering schemes”.

On Tuesday, Observer reported on the EU blacklisting of Antigua and Barbuda alongside Belize and the Seychelles for non-compliance as a tax jurisdiction.

The high level of accepted applicants and low rejection rates (around three to six percent) has raised eyebrows in the EU Commission as they question the “thoroughness of the security screenings”.

In March 2022, the five Eastern Caribbean countries sought to restrict Russian nationals from their programme acceptance list, a move welcomed by the EU Commission. They also agreed on six principles with the EU in an effort to stave of pressure on their CBI programmes.

These included collective agreement on the treatment of application denials, interviews, additional checks by each country’s Financial Intelligence Unit, auditing of the programmes, and the retrieval of passports through assistance from overseas law enforcement agencies.

However, the EU now has concerns over how persons who are accepted for citizenship under the programme could change their names, in Antigua and Barbuda’s case after five years.

“In Antigua and Barbuda and Dominica, it is allowed as of five years after obtaining citizenship; in Grenada after one year; in Saint Kitts and Nevis, it is allowed upon obtaining citizenship. In some cases, multiple name changes are also allowed,” the report indicated.

Tags

Citizenship EU Golden Visa CBI Programme