Arecent study by EU authorities, suggested that security concerns with citizenship by investment programs “could be addressed” by the European travel and information authorisation system (ETIAS), which was originally scheduled to come into effect by the end of 2022, and is now set to come into effect in 2024. It is similar to ETA (online electronic travel authorization) implemented by US and Canada. It is an automated IT system created to identify security, irregular migration or epidemic risks posed by visa-exempt visitors travelling to the Schengen States,
The EU is set to implement Electronic Travel Authorization (ETIAS) to 61 countries that have visa waiver agreements to visit Schengen area. ETIAS was planned to operational in 2022 but delayed to 2024.
“It could be the EU’s answer. Perhaps a simple solution, than IMPOSING visa waiver suspension to CBI nations”,
– World Citizenship Council
The Council earlier has put forward several proposals to strengthen CBI programs aligning closely with the EU visa policy
Risks posed by CBI
The EU has already revoked visa free agreement of all Vanuatu citizens, for poor vetting of applicants and security risks with Vanuatu’s citizenship by investment scheme. The EU has further threatened to impose more visa waiver suspensions on other countries running investor citizenship schemes in Caribbean and Europe for identity risks, poor vetting, money laundering and tax evasion.
In its sixth visa suspension report, the EU has always maintained a position saying “The purpose of visa waiver agreements is to facilitate people-to-people contacts between the EU and a third country, not to enable nationals of other visa-required third countries to circumvent the EU short-stay visa procedure through the acquisition of citizenship by investment.”.
“The Commission to exert as much pressure as possible to ensure that third countries that have investor citizenship schemes in place and that benefit from visa-free travel abolish those schemes”, says European Commission.
Visa Suspension Mechanism (VSM)
The EU’s visa suspension mechanism (VSM) was first introduced as part of the EU visa policy in 2013. The VSM is a safeguard against the abuse of visa-free travel and can be triggered four reasons for the triggering of a suspension:
- a substantial increase (more than 50%) in the number people arriving irregularly from visa-free countries, including people found to be staying irregularly, and persons refused entry at the border;
- a substantial increase (more than 50%) in the number of asylum applications with from countries low recognition rate (around 3-4%);
- a decline in cooperation on readmission;
- an increased risk to the security of Member States.
Any EU Member State or the European Commission can trigger a suspension. The VSM has been triggered twice:
The first time in May 2019, following a notification from the Netherlands reporting an increase in unfounded asylum applications and serious criminal offences by the nationals of Albania;
The second time in 2022, following an analysis by the Commission, which led to the temporary suspension of the visa exemption for Vanuatu owing to the operation of an investor citizenship scheme, which constituted an increased risk to the Member States’ internal security and public policy.
Currently, three visa-free travel agreements have been suspended:
- Russia (full suspensionof the facilitation agreement)
- Belarus(partial suspension of facilitation agreement)
- Vanuatu (full suspension of waiver agreement).
According to World Tourism and Travel Council, with a shift to visa-free policy, lead to a 16.6% growth in travel demand, bringing people of two nations closer to each other exchanging business, trade, investments, language and culture. Visa-free regimes are crucial for the EU and its partners and bring substantive benefits in people-to-people contacts, economic development, tourism, and cultural exchanges.
