Bulgaria has revoked 12 golden passports, and the process for 5 others is underway, Justice Minister Krum Zarkov informed Bulgarian Telegraph Company after a closed assembly of the European Parliament’s Democracy, Rule of Regulation, and Basic Rights Monitoring Group in Brussels on Thursday.
The minister defined that Bulgaria has issued a bit over 120 such passports for investments. The controversial scheme was just lately shelved over criticism from the European Fee and several other irregularities revealed in granting citizenship to rich third-country traders.
At the moment, the State company for nationwide safety (SANS) is checking every of the issued passports, however no data has been given on who has had their passport revoked and why.
In the summertime of 2021, Yanaki Stoilov, the caretaker minister of justice, handed quite a few golden passport recordsdata to SANS. Originally of this 12 months, Nadezhda Yordanova, his successor within the authorities of Kiril Petkov, defined that SANS discovered 5 circumstances of great violations in acquiring Bulgarian citizenship and the investigation is ongoing.
Stoilov reported 47 suspicious circumstances to SANS.
“The Ministry of Justice has demonstrated that when sufficiently clear knowledge comes, we don’t hesitate in any respect to ship a proposal to the president to revoke citizenship,” commented Zarkov on Thursday.
He added that after authorized adjustments had been handed within the earlier parliament Nationwide Malta and Cyprus had related schemes however Nicosia suspended its personal just lately over corruption issues. Solely Valletta continues and as a consequence, it’s going through court docket proceedings from the EU.
(Krassen Nikolov | EURACTIV.bg)
