Reacting to the ‘Cyprus Papers’ scandal (see EUROPE 12544/17), MEP Sophie in ’t Veld (Renew Europe, the Netherlands) sent a letter on Tuesday 25 August to the European Commissioner for Justice, Didier Reynders, asking him to take concrete measures to tackle the proliferation of ‘golden visas’ in the EU.
This new scandal, according to which Cyprus has allegedly granted Cypriot citizenship to people convicted of fraud and money laundering in exchange for a substantial investment in the country, demonstrates once again, in the honourable Member’s view, that the European Commission’s passive approach does not work.
In her letter, she asks the Commission to take a hard line by completely banning these citizenship by investment programmes, launching infringement proceedings or at least framing them at EU level - a request already made by the European Parliament in the past.
“One of the major initiatives announced by the Commission – the Group of Member States Experts that was to develop a common set of security checks – appears to still not resulted in anything tangible”, she points out, questioning the European institution on its intention to present an in-depth and public evaluation of the various regimes (see EUROPE 12178/2).
In a press release on Monday 24 August, the organisation Transparency International also called on the Commission to “to deliver on its commitment and stop the EU from being a safe haven for the corrupt and criminal”.
See the letter from Ms in 't Veld : https://bit.ly/3jfzmA2 (Original version in French by Marion Fontana)