Citizenship offer for investors sparks concern

TIRANA, Feb. 7 – Albania’s Prime Minister Sali Berisha recently announced changes to the law on citizenship, saying that foreign nationals investing over Euro 100,000 would be granted Albanian citizenship.
But it is not clear whether that can be allowed by the European Union in which Albanian citizens have been traveling visa-free for more than a year.
Other people expressed concern that it could open the way to offering passports to terrorists around the world, taking into account Albania’s poor or weak law-enforcement authorities.
Berisha said Albanian citizenship should also be given to all the citizens of Albanian descent in line with the obligations stemming from the agreement on lifting the visa regime and other legal definitions.
The law on citizenship must be reviewed so that it maintains all obligations stemming from the EU agreement on lifting of the visa regime.
It is not clear, however, if European authorities would agree with this latest announcement especially at this moment when they are to decide whether western Balkan countries have complied with the visa-free rules.
It seems that Berisha’s decision stemmed from the desire to have more investment in the country.
“The desire to invest in Albania and acquire the Albanian citizenship is real. Many businessmen have already applied. It’s not because it used to be banned, but now it is granted by law,” he said.
The local media immediately reported that a similar proposal by Montenegro in 2010 to award citizenship in return for an investment of 500,000 Euros was opposed by EU politicians with warnings that Podgorica was jeopardizing its visa-free regime with Brussels.
Montenegro has scrapped that plan.
But other journalists wrote that after the fall of communism in 1990 there were many foreign citizens, mainly Arab ones, who applied and got the citizenship and then they ended up being part of terrorist groups. Some of them were arrested in 1996 and others left the country.
It is not clear whether Berisha will continue to apply such a decision, or whether it needs to be passed in the parliament first. In that case it is almost fore sure that the opposition will oppose it.
But meanwhile there could be also reactions from Brussels.