Yanev’s cabinet proposes an end to the sale of Bulgarian passports

–

–

–

A total ban on obtaining Bulgarian citizenship in exchange for investments, the so-called scheme of “golden passports”, proposes the caretaker government.

According to the office of Prime Minister Stefan Yanev, two texts should be deleted from the Bulgarian Citizenship Act – one is for naturalization of family members and investors themselves, and the second is about the possibility of a Bulgarian passport to be literally bought by a person who contributed 1 million to Bulgaria. A bill for repeal of both texts has already been published for public discussion.

Bulgaria is one of the three EU countries that sells passports to investors on a par with Malta and Cyprus and has been constantly criticized for doing so. In recent years, several schemes related to fictitious investments have been broken – BGN 1 million are deposited in a bank, after which they are withdrawn immediately upon receipt of the passport. This year, the law was changed so that citizenship could be obtained for real investments in production, but the EC’s accusations against Bulgaria continued.

– .