Malta has suspended citizenship applications for Russian and Belarusian nationals until further notice because it cannot currently effectively carry out due diligence on such applicants.

In a statement, the Parliamentary Secretariat for Citizenship and Communities said that no beneficiaries of any status, related to the grant of citizenship or residence, are on the EU Sanctions List.

Similarly, no applications from individuals on the EU Sanctions List are currently in process, the secretariat said.

“The ongoing due diligence process ensures flagging of individuals who feature on sanctions lists from time to time. In such cases, the agencies shall apply all the processes provided by law to revoke any status granted to them,” the secretariat said.

The secretariat said that “as a result of recent developments, the existent due diligence checks cannot be carried out effectively in the current scenario.”

They said that consequently, Community Malta Agency and Residency Malta Agency have suspended, until further notice, the processing of applications for the above-mentioned statuses from nationals of the Russian Federation and Belarus.

The parliamentary secretariat said that notwithstanding the fact that no beneficiaries of any citizenship or residence status are on the EU Sanctions List, renewals of status of beneficiaries will be processed on a case-by-case basis in accordance with the existing standard procedures.

These entail fresh compliance checks to ensure beneficiaries continue to remain eligible, the secretariat added.

The move comes after pressure on the government to stop selling passports to Russian nationals through its IIP scheme, particularly as Russia continues its invasion of Ukraine and as the EU tightens sanctions on the country and on oligarchs close to Russian President Vladimir Putin.

Malta's golden passport scheme has seen citizenships sold to a high number of Russians throughout the course of its existence.

The government has continually defended the scheme and insisted that it would not be stopping the scheme. Parliamentary Secretary Alex Muscat - who runs the secretariat which issued the above statement - refused to say earlier this week whether Malta will stop selling passports to wealthy Russians, arguing that “not all Russians are bad.”

European Parliament President Roberta Metsola said yesterday that Europe can no longer welcome Kremlin cash and pretend there are no strings attached. “Putin's oligarchs and those who bankroll him should no longer be able to use their purchasing power to hide behind a veneer of respectability - in our cities, communities...or our sports clubs.”

“Their super yachts should find no harbour in our Europe. And we can no longer sell passports to Putin's friends allowing them to circumvent our security. No more,” she said.

 

PN reaction

Reacting, the PN said it had been proved right once again after the government announced the suspension, which it had been calling for.

Abela should have taken this step well before, but chose to play for the gallery and only suspended the applications after the EU issued sanctions, it said.

“Abela did this not out of conviction but out of convenience,” the PN said, adding that solidarity with the Ukrainian people required that such a step should have been taken earlier.

The PN also said that all necessary verifications should be carried out on Russian individuals who obtained a Maltese passport over the past months, even in view of a pending criminal court case against three Russians who had bought a Maltese passport.