The Maltese scheme, for instance, requires applicants to make financial contributions of at least 650,000 euros ($800,000) and an investment in selected stocks, bonds or special purpose vehicles of at 150,000 euros to be held for a minimum period of five years. ($1 = 0.8116 euros) (Reporting by Francesco Guarascio editing by Mark Heinrich)
Portugal will end its golden visa programme, which offers residency rights to non-EU nationals in return for investments including in real estate and has been criticised for boosting house prices and rents. Successful applicants can apply to obtain a passport after five years.
The commission should at least set guidelines on due diligence, according to Rachel Owens of anti-corruption group Global Witness. These programmes "pose systemic and high corruption risks across Europe," she said.
Rents and house prices have skyrocketed in Portugal, which is among the poorest countries in Western Europe. Last year, more than 50% of workers earned less than 1,000 euros per month while in Lisbon alone, rents jumped 37% in 2022.
Government schemes to trade citizenship or residence rights for investment have been applied in at least 10 European countries that are part of the Schengen free-movement area: Austria, Belgium, Greece, Latvia, Lithuania, Malta, Portugal, Spain, Hungary and Switzerland.
Low salaries, a red-hot property market, policies encouraging wealthy foreigners to invest and a tourism-dependent economy have for years made it hard for locals to rent or buy, housing groups have said. Portugal's 8.3% inflation rate has exacerbated the problem.
BRUSSELS, March 5 (Reuters) - Programmes run by some European Union countries to sell visas and citizenship to wealthy individuals could undermine the bloc's free-movement area as they are vulnerable to abuse and graft, two anti-corruption watchdogs said on Monday.
Housing groups said the measures would mean little if the government continued to promote other policies to attract wealthy foreigners to Portugal, such as the "Digital Nomads Visa" introduced in October, which gives foreigners with high monthly income from remote work to live and work from Portugal without paying local taxes.
LISBON, Feb 16 (Reuters) - Portugal announced on Thursday a hefty package of measures to tackle a housing crisis, including the end of its controversial "Golden Visa" scheme and a ban on new licenses for Airbnbs and other short-term holiday rentals.
New investigative reports release by the Organised Crime and Corruption Reporting Project (OCCRP), a media consortium, showed cases of poor governmental scrutiny over individuals who were granted EU passports or residence permits.
The European Commission is due to publish by the end of the year a report on so-called golden visa schemes run by EU states. A spokesman said on Monday the report would offer "guidance" to EU countries on how to apply the programmes.
"Even for me - having an income from another country - it's a lot of money," Esmee said. "If housing stays this expensive or gets worse, (foreign) people earning a Portuguese income ... will start moving back to their own countries."
The 30-year-old, who has two degrees in tourism, shares a flat with five others, pays 450 euros ($475) per month for a 13 square-metre mezzanine room, but makes as little as 800 euros a month during the low tourism season.
But a decade on, she still lives in a tiny, rented room - one of tens of thousands of young Portuguese hit by a housing crisis exacerbated by the arrival of richer foreigners lured in by incentives pushed by her own government.
Rights groups have pointed a finger at the "golden visas", which the government has promised to scrap. The programme has been giving foreigners residents' rights since 2012 in return for investments, attracting 6.8 billion euros primarily into real estate.
Some leave the city. Some stay with their parents. The average age people leave the parental home in Portugal is 33.6, the highest in the European Union, according to data from the bloc's statistics office.
Since then, critics say those schemes have come back to bite the economy by ramping up competition for scarce housing - fuelling inflation and piling pressure particularly onto young, local, entry-level workers.
Rents in Lisbon have jumped 65% since 2015 and sale prices have sky-rocketed 137%, figures from Confidencial Imobiliario, which collects data on housing, show. Rents increased 37% last year alone, more than in Barcelona or Paris, according to another real estate data company, Casafari.
Portugal ranks as one of western Europe's poorest nations. But its capital was last year ranked the world's third least financially viable city, thanks to its punishing combination of low wages and high rents.
But even some of those remote workers are becoming increasingly aware of the housing crisis. Esmee, a 28-year-old from the Netherlands, lives in the coastal town of Costa da Caparica, across the Tagus, and pays 825 euros per month for her flat.
Portugal will end its golden visa programme, which offers residency rights to non-EU nationals in return for investments including in real estate and has been criticised for boosting house prices and rents. Successful applicants can apply to obtain a passport after five years.
The commission should at least set guidelines on due diligence, according to Rachel Owens of anti-corruption group Global Witness. These programmes "pose systemic and high corruption risks across Europe," she said.
Rents and house prices have skyrocketed in Portugal, which is among the poorest countries in Western Europe. Last year, more than 50% of workers earned less than 1,000 euros per month while in Lisbon alone, rents jumped 37% in 2022.
Government schemes to trade citizenship or residence rights for investment have been applied in at least 10 European countries that are part of the Schengen free-movement area: Austria, Belgium, Greece, Latvia, Lithuania, Malta, Portugal, Spain, Hungary and Switzerland.
Low salaries, a red-hot property market, policies encouraging wealthy foreigners to invest and a tourism-dependent economy have for years made it hard for locals to rent or buy, housing groups have said. Portugal's 8.3% inflation rate has exacerbated the problem.
BRUSSELS, March 5 (Reuters) - Programmes run by some European Union countries to sell visas and citizenship to wealthy individuals could undermine the bloc's free-movement area as they are vulnerable to abuse and graft, two anti-corruption watchdogs said on Monday.
Housing groups said the measures would mean little if the government continued to promote other policies to attract wealthy foreigners to Portugal, such as the "Digital Nomads Visa" introduced in October, which gives foreigners with high monthly income from remote work to live and work from Portugal without paying local taxes.
LISBON, Feb 16 (Reuters) - Portugal announced on Thursday a hefty package of measures to tackle a housing crisis, including the end of its controversial "Golden Visa" scheme and a ban on new licenses for Airbnbs and other short-term holiday rentals.
New investigative reports release by the Organised Crime and Corruption Reporting Project (OCCRP), a media consortium, showed cases of poor governmental scrutiny over individuals who were granted EU passports or residence permits.
The European Commission is due to publish by the end of the year a report on so-called golden visa schemes run by EU states. A spokesman said on Monday the report would offer "guidance" to EU countries on how to apply the programmes.
"Even for me - having an income from another country - it's a lot of money," Esmee said. "If housing stays this expensive or gets worse, (foreign) people earning a Portuguese income ... will start moving back to their own countries."The 30-year-old, who has two degrees in tourism, shares a flat with five others, pays 450 euros ($475) per month for a 13 square-metre mezzanine room, but makes as little as 800 euros a month during the low tourism season.
But a decade on, she still lives in a tiny, rented room - one of tens of thousands of young Portuguese hit by a housing crisis exacerbated by the arrival of richer foreigners lured in by incentives pushed by her own government.
Rights groups have pointed a finger at the "golden visas", which the government has promised to scrap. The programme has been giving foreigners residents' rights since 2012 in return for investments, attracting 6.8 billion euros primarily into real estate.
Some leave the city. Some stay with their parents. The average age people leave the parental home in Portugal is 33.6, the highest in the European Union, according to data from the bloc's statistics office.
Since then, critics say those schemes have come back to bite the economy by ramping up competition for scarce housing - fuelling inflation and piling pressure particularly onto young, local, entry-level workers.
Rents in Lisbon have jumped 65% since 2015 and sale prices have sky-rocketed 137%, figures from Confidencial Imobiliario, which collects data on housing, show. Rents increased 37% last year alone, more than in Barcelona or Paris, according to another real estate data company, Casafari.
Portugal ranks as one of western Europe's poorest nations. But its capital was last year ranked the world's third least financially viable city, thanks to its punishing combination of low wages and high rents.
But even some of those remote workers are becoming increasingly aware of the housing crisis. Esmee, a 28-year-old from the Netherlands, lives in the coastal town of Costa da Caparica, across the Tagus, and pays 825 euros per month for her flat.
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