Dear IMC Member,

The European Commission has launched a public consultation on the next steps on legal migration, and particularly on attracting skills and talent to the EU. The public consultation, as explained by the Commission, aims to identify areas where the EU framework on legal migration could be further improved, including through possible new legislation. In particular, the Commission invites stakeholders to propose new ideas to, inter alia, boost the EU’s attractiveness. The views of stakeholders will help the Commission decide what other initiatives are needed to address the long-term challenges in the area of legal migration.

We believe that this is a very good opportunity for all of us to voice our views on various aspects of investment migration, which is not only a legal way of migration but has also played a vital economic development role in the EU, creating jobs, retaining jobs, improving infrastructure, and providing critical funding for projects that otherwise would stand idle, incomplete, or never begun.

Indeed, CBI programmes around the world generated over 2.5 billion dollars during the last year alone. Total investment amounts to over 12.5 billion dollars, more than half of which has been generated by CBI programmes in the EU. Five of the twelve formal CBI programmes are in Europe. Furthermore, while only two EU Member States have formal CBI programmes, over 20 EU Member States allow discretionary naturalization on the grounds of special achievements (including economic achievements) of applicants.

In addition, RBI programmes generated more than 12 billion dollars in direct investment globally in 2018 alone. Total investment since 2008 amounts to over 60 billion dollars. Europe hosts the largest number of RBI programmes: RBI in the EU alone has attracted around 25 billion euros in investment over the previous decade, according to 2018 data. In 2018, Europe received reportedly over three billion dollars in investment from only 6 RBI programmes and nearly 5,000 applications (of main applicants) were approved.

We feel that EU institutions do not recognise enough, if not totally disregarding, the significant contribution that investment migration programmes have made in the past and the importance of such programmes for the future development and the EU’s attractiveness. Quite the contrary, investment migration is often stigmatised and unfairly criticised by EU institutions. In our opinion, EU institutions, need to act swiftly to recognise the financial impact of investment migration and encourage investments through investment programmes and future work towards common regulatory framework. The IMC does not only fully support the efforts of national legislators and EU institutions towards strengthening standards surrounding investment migration and transparency of states with citizenship and residency programmes, but goes a step further, advocating for a concise regulatory framework with strict minimum standards across all countries with investment migration programmes.

We would, therefore, like to ask you to participate in the consultation process and voice your views on this subject matter. The IMC will also participate in the consultations. Together we can achieve more!

Full link to consultation: https://ec.europa.eu/info/law/better-regulation/have-your-say/initiatives/12594-Public-consultation-on-legal-migration

Your sincerely

The IMC Secretariat