Montenegro: Citizenship For Sale?

The government of Montenegro has announced it will be offering an “economic citizenship” to applicants who invest at least €500,000 in the country.

While Montenegro sees that offer as an opportunity to boost its economy, it has caused diverse reactions in the European Union, who has recently granted Montenegro’s citizens with visa-free entry in the Schengen zone.

"I see it as highly questionable that it should be enough to invest an amount of 500,000 Euros in a country to get its citizenship," Stephan Mayer, spokesman for home affairs and legal policy for coalition partner Christian Social Union (CSU), told Reuters.

The German media have reported that Montenegro has already given citizenship to the former Thai Prime Minister Thaksin ShinawatraThaksin Shinawatra, who is wanted under the corruption charges in his home country. Accordingly, Shinawatra pays for his “safe haven” by investing in the Montenegro’s tourism.

The “economic citizenship” scheme is to "attract tycoons and corrupt politicians on the run" and undermine Montenegro's credibility abroad, the opposition leader Nebojsa Medojevic told AP.

At the same time, the government stated that only businessmen with "indisputable and credible biography and financial means" will be able apply, and “all applicants will be checked according to most strict international standards". The program of the “economic citizenship” is new in the Balkans but already exists in some western countries such as Austria, Belgium and the US, it said in the statement published on the official website of the government.

The tiny Balkan country with about 670,000 citizens proclaimed its independence from Serbia in 2006. Along with other Western Balkans states, it now aspires to the membership in the European Union, which had granted it citizens with visa free entry to the most of its member-states.