The recent spat between the European Commission and the Maltese government about its controversial sale of EU citizenship to rich foreigners under a new scheme started the debate all over again. Foreigners will be able to buy Maltese passports for 1.15m euros (£944,000), without having to live in Malta. So should a country be allowed to sell their citizenship to rich foreigners. The Commission says citizenship rules are a national prerogative, but it has raised concerns, as have many MEPs. And its not Malta alone. Portugal, Ireland, Spain,Cyprus, Greece, turkey, UK and even USA has such schemes besides many small island nations like Vanuatu, Grenada and St Kitts.
While citizenship rules are indeed a nation's prerogative, the commodification and marketization of citizenship is discriminatory and borders on corruption. How many potential immigrants can afford this 'cash-for-passports' scheme? Most of them are poor, yet the scheme offers 'passports of convenience' to the super rich who then use them to avoid tax laws in their original home countries.
Dear Dr Sudeep Debkumar . Diversity of citizenships of high skilled people will help any country to become improved in different aspects ( technology, medical care, economy, …. etc). So it is very important for any country .