Issue link: https://maltatoday.uberflip.com/i/595929
maltatoday, WEDNESDAY, 4 NovEmbEr 2015 News Italian MEP wants EC to investigate Malta residence permit racket MatthEw VElla An MEP from Silvio Berlusconi's Forza Italia party has demanded an investigation from the Euro- pean Commission into the sale of Maltese citizenship under the Individual Investor Programme, due to the police investigation in- to the racket of residence permits issued to Libyan nationals. Lara Comi's questions to the EC have so far not yet been an- swered, but the MP reported the "mass fraud" of residence permits granted to Libyans with com- panies having false stock, in the racket allegedly orchestrated by auditor Joe Sammut. Comi made specific reference to Sammut as being "in collusion with the party in government" – Sammut happens to be a former treasurer of the PL. "This situation has raised Mal- tese people's concerns over secu- rity," Comi said. She asked the EC to investigate and verify the information on the residence permit racket, and to identify whether there are secu- rity shortcomings that could af- fect the sale of Maltese passports under the IIP. Malta sells passports for €650,000, together with a prop- erty and investment addition of €400,000, under the IIP. In March 2014, the EC said that Malta had addressed con- cerns raised by the European Com- mission on its citizenship sale by introduc- ing the re- q u i r e m e nt of a 'genu- ine link' with the c o u n t r y t h r o u g h "an effective residence require- ment" of at least 12 months, as a pre-condition for obtaining citi- zenship. But more recently, the IIP regu- lator said that an initial contribu- tion of €650,000, a property lease or purchase agreement and the holding of a maximum invest- ment – among other obligations – were enough to prove an ap- plicant's residency in Malta, the Regulator of the Individual Inves- tor Programme has con- firmed. This means that physi- cal presence is not re- quired to prove resi- dency – although any aspiration to mirror physical stay to the 182 days a p p l i c a - ble for taxa- t ion purposes "should be accepted as a non-starter". After Identity Malta sought the advice of Professor Dimitry Ko- chenov – who holds a Chair of EU Constitutional Law at the Depart- ment of European and Economic Law at the University of Gronin- gen in the netherlands – the Of- fice of the Regulator concluded that IIP applicants could prove their residency by other means, and the physical presence or oth- erwise of the applicant should no longer be an issue. According to Kochenov, resi- dence in an EU Member State is a legal status and it therefore does not carry the same meaning as presence. "Being a legal status, residence comes with rights and obligations and the conditions of its commencement and termina- tion depend on the rules in force and not on the presence of a par- ticular individual within that ter- ritory." Italian MEP Lara Comi asked the European Commission to investigate whether there are security shortcomings is sale of Maltese passports Maltese companies want to visit more fairs JaMEs DEbono 41% of Maltese SMEs believe par- ticipation in trade fairs would be most likely to help them engage in business abroad. That is more than double the per- centage of businessmen who believe the same in other European coun- tries. For the Maltese, participation in fairs is also regarded as the best way to penetrate foreign markets, well above tax incentives and grants and subsidies. This emerges from a Europe-wide survey of 14,513 companies in 34 European countries, including 200 companies in Malta. Only 20% of companies inter- viewed in the 28 EU member states consider participation in fairs as the most important way to help them engage in business abroad. On the other hand the opportu- nity to take part in international trade fairs is the most mentioned measure in Malta (41%), and is also mentioned by 37% of companies in Portugal and 35% in Greece. By contrast, just 8% in the neth- erlands and 12% in the UK and Bul- garia mention this. The most popular measure among the EU member states are grants, subsidies and low interest loans (30%), and tax incentives (28%) – measures which were also popular with Maltese businesses, 32% of which opted for tax incentives and 28% for grants and subsidies. While 17% mentioned advice and training as useful measures to help them engage in business abroad only 9% of Maltese businesses men- tioned this. The survey finds that companies in Sweden and Malta are the most likely to have invested in a company abroad (both 11%). Conversely, very few SMEs in non-EU countries say that they have invested in a com- pany based abroad, particularly in Albania, Iceland and Macedonia, where almost no SMEs have done this. At least half of all SMEs in Cyprus (52%) say that high delivery costs are a major problem, as do half of those in Malta, 45% in Portugal, 34% in Greece and 33% in Bulgaria and France. In contrast, just 5% of com- panies in Estonia, 10% in Denmark and 11% in the Czech Republic and Finland say this is a major problem for them when importing. Companies in Finland (32%), Mal- ta, Germany, Poland (all 26%) and Cyprus (24%) are the most likely to have imported from China, par- ticularly when compared to those in Bulgaria and Slovakia (both 6%). 20% of Maltese companies also export to China. This is double the percentage of all companies in EU member states who export to China and the highest percentage in the 34 countries surveyed. Significantly, 28% of Maltese SMEs export to north Africa and the Middle East. The Maltese were the second most likely to export to this region after the French (29%). none of the Maltese companies interviewed imports from Russia. The percentage of companies which import from the USA is the same as the EU 28 average: 14%. Only 6% of Maltese companies compared to 7% in the EU 28 imported from north Africa and the Middle East. Prime Minister Joseph Muscat visiting the Maltese pavilion at the Expo in Milan in July