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The European Union (EU) has reportedly expressed apprehension over Dominica’s low-cost\/high-volume model of its Citizenship by Investment (CBI) program. This is according to a report from the online migration industry newspaper, Investment Migration Insider (IMI), which said EU representatives, including its head of visa policy and its liaison in Barbados, met with representatives of countries in the Caribbean with CBI programs in Dominica last week to discuss concerns about their programs.<\/p>\n
The meetings took place in Dominica at the Intercontinental Dominica Cabrits Resort on Monday, 22 January 2024, and were attended by heads of Caribbean Citizenship by Investment Units and attorneys general from countries with CBI programs, namely Dominica, St Kitts and Nevis, Antigua, Grenada and Antigua.<\/p>\n
IMI said its sources stated the meetings were to discuss the future of visa-free Schengen travel, EU concerns about the CBIs, and other matters. The meetings were described as “initial and early stage” in nature.<\/p>\n
“The EU has reportedly made it clear while there is no imminent threat to visa-free Schengen access for the Caribbean five, revocation of such travel privileges could be among the consequences if the EU’s misgivings about the region’s CBI programs are not addressed,” the IMI report stated.<\/p>\n
It continued, “Of particular concern to the EU are potential national security and immigration risks associated with the granting of citizenship to individuals the EU does not wish to grant access to Europe. Moreover, at least during the meeting with Dominica, the EU expressed apprehension about the low-cost\/high-volume model of CBI adopted in the
\nlast few years, a model, they say, [where risk has] been exacerbated by the prevalence of irregular but tolerated discounted schemes.”<\/p>\n
The IMI report stated that during the meeting with Dominica, the EU representatives said: “They would like to see Caribbean programs raise their prices by an order of magnitude to obtain similar levels of CBI revenue but from a much smaller volume of applications.”<\/p>\n
In recent times, the EU Commission has been publicly expressing concerns over CBI programs in the Caribbean. A report issued on October 18, 2023, gave for first time a glimpse of the magnitude of these programs in Antigua and Barbuda, Dominica, Grenada, Saint Kitts and Nevis, and Saint Lucia. It said at the time of the report, 88,000 passports have been sold by these five countries with Dominica selling 34,500 which is four times more than what the government of Dominica has publicly reported.<\/p>\n
This high rate of the sale of passports which offers visa-free access to member states can, according to the EU, “result in risks or threats to the public policy or internal security of the Member States, including those related to infiltration of organized crime, money-laundering, tax evasion and corruption.\u201d<\/p>\n
In October 2023, the European Commission sought to revise regulations surrounding Caribbean CBI programmes, as passport holders are granted visa-free access to the EU. The commission aims to simplify the process for the suspension of visa-free travel from countries that offer citizenship to foreigners.<\/p>\n
The objective is to prevent misuse of the visa waiver programme and address risks posed by individuals who obtained their citizenship through a CBI programme.<\/p>\n
The EU visa waiver programme permits nationals from 60 countries to visit 27 Schengen Zone countries for up to 90 days for tourism and business purposes. The proposals, made in the 6th report under the Visa Suspension Mechanism, suggest expanding the grounds for suspension, including non-EU countries not fully aligned with the EU\u2019s visa policy and visa-free non-EU countries operating investor citizenship schemes. The proposals also recommend extending the procedure duration to allow more time for remedial actions and strengthening the commission\u2019s monitoring and reporting obligations to any visa-free countries where challenges are identified.<\/p>\n
Despite the concerns by the EU, Saint Kitts and Nevis, Dominica, Saint Lucia, Grenada, and Antigua and Barbuda want their CBI programs to continue because of the massive amount of money it brings in to their coffers. A report published by the business newspaper, Bloomberg, on January 11, 2024, stated that sales of passports from these five countries bring in a whopping $579 million a year.<\/p>\n
\u201cOur national economic prosperity hinges on the robustness of our CBI program,\u201d Terrance Drew, the prime minister of Saint Kitts, said in December. \u201cThis program must be protected at all costs.\u201d<\/p>\n
Prime Minister of Dominica, Roosevelt Skerrit said that citizens of the island have benefited more from CBI compared to any other country in the world.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere is no country in the world, and I say so without any fear of contradiction, no country in the world, where the citizens have benefited more from the Citizenship By Investment Program,\u201d he said. \u201cThere is no country in the world who can show you [more] visible signs of the Citizenship By Investment Program than in Dominica.\u201d<\/p>\n
If the EU were to fully crack down on these programs and their sale of so-called “golden passports”, it may ruin some of these island nations.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt would pretty much cripple the Caribbean industry,\u201d Rafael Cintron, the CEO and co-founder of Wealthy Expat, which advises people on second passports, told Bloomberg.<\/p>\n
Meanwhile, IMI confirmed the meeting took place in Dominica last week via text messages it exchanged with the head of St Kitts\u2019 Citizenship by Investment Unit, Michael Martin. He told IMI it was “more of a fact-finding mission” which was “constructive and informative.”<\/p>\n
Martin also said the EU representative did not express anything definite.<\/p>\n
“I suspect they will issue a report after they finish the round of meetings”, he said, according to IMI.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The European Union (EU) has reportedly expressed apprehension over Dominica’s low-cost\/high-volume model of its Citizenship by Investment (CBI) program. This is according to a report from the online migration industry newspaper, Investment Migration Insider (IMI), which said EU representatives, including…","protected":false},"author":13,"featured_media":316043,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_cbd_carousel_blocks":"[]","footnotes":""},"categories":[36,286,235,6,76,42,9,12,14],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-316028","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-economy-development","category-governance","category-homepage-carousel","category-international-news","category-international-relations","category-media-telecommunications","category-news","category-politics","category-regional"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\n