European Union: European Commission Publishes Recommendations Regarding Golden Visa

The European Commission has published recommendations to prevent fraud and abuse of Golden Visa programs. These types of visas are available to third-country nationals investing funds in the country issuing the permit. The recommendations include: a need for stricter vetting of applicants, checks on conditions of residence and security, verification of continuous residency in the issuing EU countries, immediate withdrawal or refusal of permit renewals for Russian or Belarussian nationals targeted by EU sanctions, and suspending all such programs for citizens of Russia and Belarus. Finally, EU countries have been advised to scrutinize current Russian and Belarussian beneficiaries of these programs to ensure there are no links to the EU list of sanctions currently in place in response to the Ukraine situation. These are EU recommendations (not legally binding) and would need to be adopted into national legislation and practice to come into effect.

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