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economic development by creating new tourist, agricultural and processing capacities and opening new jobs,” the government said in a statement.
Participants will have to donate €100,000 for the development of poor communities and invest either €250,000 in developments in the poorer northern or central Montenegro or €450,000 in projects in the capital Podgorica or the Adriatic coast region. The programme will be managed by a special govern- ment agency, and the government has launched a tender to hire due diligence agents to check applicants.
Along with Serbia, Montenegro is one of the closest candidate countries to secur- ing EU membership, with a tentative target date of 2025 set out in a European Commission document last year. How- ever, the country has repeatedly been criticised by the European Commission for failing to adequately tackle corrup- tion and organised crime.
Moldova launched its citizenship for investment programme in November 2018. The scheme is managed by Henley & Partners, an international firm that calls itself the “global leader in residence
and citizenship planning”. The pro- gramme was launched at the 12th Glob- al Residence and Citizenship Conference in Dubai, hosted by Henley & Partners and attended by Moldova’s Economy and Infrastructure Minister Chiril Gaburici, who claimed the scheme was “specifical- ly developed with the Moldovan people in mind”. “In order to take the next step forward in our economic development, and also support the social wellbeing
of all Moldovans, we need to welcome innovative new ways of generating capi- tal. The MCBI programme is part of this future-focused approach,” Gaburici said.
Moldova is not yet an EU candidate country; while it signed an Associa- tion Agreement in 2014, its people and politicians are still divided over whether its future lies with the EU, with Russia or somewhere between the two. But the new scheme is noted in the Euro- pean Commission report because of the visa-free regime for short stays in the EU introduced for its citizens in 2014. Like Montenegro, Moldova suffers from high levels of corruption; notoriously $1bn – around 15% of the country’s GDP – was siphoned off from three of its banks in
a massive fraud that surfaced in 2014. In 2017, Transparency International
Moldova warned that the new provisions in the citizenship law “could represent
a new attempt at legalising dubious financial means.”
Global Witness’ Hirst acknowledges that citizenship for investment schemes are part of a “growing industry” that can
be particularly attractive for smaller countries.
“More and more small countries are taking these [golden passport schemes] on,” she says. “I can see that from a small country’s perspective it’s a very attractive opportu- nity to diversify your economy with quite low overheads, but time and again these schemes proved to be incredibly risky. When you get it wrong ... the reputational damage and the risk to citizens is high – and not just to the [EU] accession state or member state in question.”
Now, however, not just EU member states, but accession candidates and potential candidates have been put on notice by the European Commission. From now on the EC says it will monitor citizenship for investment schemes and block the more egregious money raising scams.
Donald Trump praises Hungary's efforts to curb migration at meeting with Vikor Orban
bne IntelliNews
Hungary aims to strengthen its strategic alliance with the US, Prime Minister Viktor Orban said at a meeting with US President Donald Trump at the White House on May 13.
Orban is the first Hungarian prime minister to be invited to the White House since he met Bill Clinton in the Oval Office in 1998. The visit marks the end of a 2.5-year diplomatic mission to
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arrange the meeting, which came days before the European Parliament election.
Orban was the first leader in Europe to support Trump's migration policies before the 2016 election but still he
is the last statesman from the CEE region to receive an invitation from the US president.
Trump praised Orban’s efforts to pre-
serve Hungary’s security and for protect- ing Christians from migrants.
"You're respected all over Europe. Prob- ably like me a little bit controversial, but that's okay," Trump told Orban at a brief news conference. "You've done a good job and you've kept your country safe." Trump's comments appeared quickly on the Facebook site of Hungary’s ruling Fidesz party.