Flogging passports

It (supposedly) takes quite some time to draft a legal notice and amendments to the Citizenship Act setting up a scheme to sell citizenship – Identity Malta. I am sure that somebody in the Taghna Lkoll government did not hit upon this halfwit idea while perusing through a September edition of the Economist. (Click here: If Austria and Cyprus can do it then why can’t we?). The Draft Legal Notice in question has already been uploaded through the Running Commentary network and we will oblige by adding a link here (out of courtesy of course). So what could have prompted Muscat and his crew to decide that it is a good idea to start selling the Maltese passport like it was some gourmet pastizz for the rich and famous?

The gist of the Economist article linked above could already point you in the right direction as to what kind of clients one can expect when one sets up shop in the market for readily available EU documents (just add cash).

“One category of applicants consists of rich people from emerging economies seeking convenience and security. Many are Chinese, though since the Arab spring demand is growing from the Middle East. A second is made up of citizens of rich countries who wish to disguise their origins when visiting dangerous places.” – Selling citizenship, Papers Please (The Economist, 28th September 2013).

We’ve all heard of people like Edward Snowden, Julian Assange and Chelsea Manning. That kind of client would not really be in the market for an EU passport that comes tied so easily with national obligations such as the European Arrest Warrant. No sir. The market is out there for people who are rich enough to want to get a foothold into the EU – an EU passport that allows them to roam around the continent and act as EU nationals. The nouveau riches of this world – from Moscow to Guangdong would jump at the opportunity of being considered an EU citizen and this for what they would consider a handful of pennies.

So while we already know that our government is willing to sell a hold in our energy company for a pittance (yep, two Gareth Bales remember) and that the real push behind that memorandum of misunderstanding is the foothold that a Chinese company gets in the European market (see That China Connection) we now discover that the prostitution of national assets does not stop there. This latest move must not only be put in the light of recent events though – it jars even when you look at it from a wider picture and here are a few conclusions that this blog has reached:

1) An EU passport is a good thing to have – part I

For a party that spends most of its time denigrating the EU and speaking of it in the third person plural while emphasising the “Us” vs “them” scenarios this is one hell of a giant step: it is recognising the value of having an EU passport. It actually put a price on it. 650,000 euros and Joe’s your uncle. Would the Labour party have recognised the worth of EU citizenship a decade ago we’d surely be in a much better place – there would be so many more Maltese voters who are not afflicted by a sudden bout of Tourette’s whenever the good old continental grouping is mentioned.

2) An EU passport is a good thing to have – part II

So, having sussed out that there is something advantageous about owning a passe par tout l’EU thingy in hand what do the great thinkers in the Taghna Lkoll fold do? They opt to debase it and sell it to people with cash searching for a convenient base. Mind you it’s not like we did not have similar schemes aimed at attracting fat ducks before – we never gave them a passport though. Even our permanent resident scheme ran into quite a bit of controversy (as did the High Net Worth Individual scheme). Those schemes had an added value that the amount that a person seeking residence needed to invest went to a property owner in Malta – not as a cash payment to the government of Malta. So who are we really in the market for? you’d have to be blind, deaf and dumb not to see this one coming. Għami iżraq as we say in the vernacular.

3) Suddenly we’re not so full up and outnumbered

Not that this probably matters in the Taghna Lkoll Cosmic View of things but here have a government that has been weeping at every available opportunity that our country cannot deal with the influx of more immigrants that we are inundated and that we are practically the victims and nobody will help us. That same government is now setting up shop selling citizenship, yes, selling citizenship to anyone who can afford it. I thought that the Italian government’s token move of awarding citizenship posthumously to the victims of the Lampedusa tragedy was tragicomic but this… well this one takes the cake. There is no shame, no pride either in this Taghna Lkoll government. The way it flings itself from one inconsistency to another while barking at whoever criticises it with feeble excuses based on illogical fallacies is beyond pathetic.

4) Taghna Lkoll?

I saved the best for last. This scheme is yet another dagger in the whole Taghna Lkoll farce. Let us imagine that Malta was one big cake (I know that between iced buns and free for alls Taghna Lkollytes will quickly take to the metaphor) and that Joseph Muscat’s hullabaloo before the election was all about how this cake was for all of us to share rightly and equitably. Let us think for one minute how, always basing ourselves on Labour’s protestations before the election, this cake was half-baked and barely had enough to provide for us all. What has our prime confectioner gone and done? Well, while the cake has not got any larger he has decided to invite guests over to stay and join la grande abbuffata. Yes sir. It’s officially Tagħhom Ukoll now without so much as a bye your leave. But they are rich I hear you say… they pay money…. sure and they will be queuing for those free health services, those free allowances and buying the same property to which every other Maltese national is entitled.

Small ideas for small minds. I guess that really sums it up.

UPDATE

Early feedback to this post shows that there might be more to it than just a Taghna Lkoll ploy. Henley, the firm mentioned in the Economist report might have an interest that goes further back than March of this year.

A pre-Taghna Lkoll conference in Dubai discusses Global Residence & Citizenship Schemes (with Maltese participants).

Reuters on Henley.