TIRANA, August 17 – Albania is pressing on with its plan to start selling passports to rich foreigners and investors, despite repeated criticism from the EU that this scheme, also used in some neighbouring countries, goes against EU values and could cause problems in bids to join the bloc.
The issue of granting Albanian citizenship to foreign investors, something that the government of Edi Rama has been mulling for about three years, came under the spotlight again recently, after a government decision, passed on July 29 but published on August 9, envisaged that forms of PPPs could also be used for this citizenship programme.
The Agency of Drafting the Special Programs of Citizenship which was created in 2020 and is run by Bledar Skenderi
has recently clarified for BIRN that they are only “exploring and planning to hire an international company which will promote Albanian passports”. Skenderi said the actual issuance of citizenship and the required security checks would remain under state jurisdiction.
Albanian Prime Minister Edi Rama has been in favour of such an initiative since 2019 after attending a conference for “golden passports” in London. He considers the citizenship-by-investment programme as having “enormous potential” for the country.
Government officials have rejected EU criticism over this issue as driven by prejudice, insisting that the programme will be free of corruption and with the sole purpose of attracting investors, not just those seeking an Albanian passport. /Argumentum.al
