Citizenship By Investment Scheme Should not be allowed to Destroy Solidarity

OVER THE PAST FEW WEEKS, the controversial citizenship- by-investment scheme operated by most governments in the OECS and at least one Member State of the European Union, has been having major repercussions at both the regional and international levels.

It has cropped up in the chaotic US immigration policy with that country’s government threatening to restrict visa access to countries which operate the scheme, alleging that it is being abused by third parties as a means to bypass US visa access. Then, the European Court of Justice on April 29, 2025 ruled that Malta, an member state, which, in spite of official EU policy, continued to operate such a scheme selling its passports for financial gain, should cease the practice.

The Court ruled that Malta’s golden passport programme “amounts to the commercialisation of the status of a national of a Member State and by extension EU membership”. It found that this practice is “incompatible with the very nature of European Union membership”.

A third development in this controversy occurred when just around the same time the OECS states which operate this scheme as a major gangplank of obtaining international finance and investment, held a major summit on the matter in Antigua. Significantly, one prominent Member State of the OECS, St Vincent and the Grenadines, was noticeably absent from this meeting. This was not surprising since the government of SVG and its Prime Minister Dr Ralph Gonsalves, has been implacably opposed to such citizen-by-investment schemes. That meeting however, despite the seemingly growing international opposition, confirmed the commitment of those countries to the continuation of the scheme as a major component of their mobilisation of global finance and foreign investment.

One unfortunate and wholly avoidable incident arising from this meeting, has arisen in a public spat between two of the longest-serving leaders in the OECS, Antigua and Barbuda’s Prime Minister Gaston Browne, and his Vincentian counterpart Dr Gonsalves. The latter was extensively quoted in the regional media as publicly criticising the region’s CBI scheme as “corrupt and poorly managed” in some cases. He is also reported as describing the scheme as “an existential threat” to regional democratic systems.

But PM Browne expressed “shock” at the comments of Dr. Gonsalves, calling them “unfortunate and irresponsible”. In decrying the allegations of corruption and poor management, not only did he merely extol his local situation, but pointed out that the regional proponents of the scheme have set up a regional regulatory body to strengthen oversight of its operation and management.

These developments have again underlined the complications of the operation of CBI schemes both at the regional and international levels. While, whatever one’s views on the CBI, one must also respect the right of sovereign states to undertake policies that they perceive to be in their national interests. Clearly there is growing concern in developed countries about the utilisation by some unscrupulous persons to use the scheme as a means of gaining easier access to migration to such countries.

The debate and education around this controversial matter will continue. Indeed, in the case of SVG, it is bound to be a major issue in the upcoming general election. In the face of the outright hostility of PM Gonsalves and his government to the CBI and its insistence that it is tantamount to “selling one’s birthright”, the opposition NDP is clearly making it a gangplank of its campaign, having declared that it will be institute such a scheme once in government.

What is important is that we are provided with as much relevant information as possible on the operations and any inherent dangers; and that as a citizenry, we also do our own research.

Above all, we must respect the right of others to differ, and by all means, not allow the matter to destroy our solidarity at either the regional or national level.