The Montenegrin Government should carefully consider the issue of economic citizenship in order not to create any obstacle on Montenegro's path to the European Union, the head of the EU Delegation in Podgorica, Aivo Orav, said today.
"The European Commission has followed this issue very carefully in previous years," Orav said in response to a journalist's question in the Lješkopolje wine cellar, where he presented the results of the IPARD call for processing with the Minister of Agriculture, Milutin Simović.
He added that he understood that the Government did not adopt the final decision on economic citizenship, but tasked the competent institutions to create prerequisites for its application.
At the session yesterday, the Government considered and adopted the Information on the program for acquiring Montenegrin citizenship by admission on the basis of a special investment program and ordered the competent institutions to make all the necessary assumptions so that the program could begin to be implemented on October 1, 2018.
The economic citizenship program will be available to a maximum of 2.000 of the best applicants from countries that do not belong to the European Union during a limited period of three years.
Interested individuals will have the option to invest 250.000 euros in one of the development projects previously approved by the Government in an underdeveloped area of Montenegro or 450.000 euros in one of the development projects previously approved by the Government in a developed area of Montenegro.
In addition, the government will charge a fee of up to 100.000 euros per submitted request. The fee will be directed to a special fund for the development of underdeveloped areas.
Simović said that it is not a project to sell passports and economic citizenship, but a project that should ensure economic development and accelerate the fulfillment of economic criteria that are part of Montenegro's European agenda.
He said that the government is thinking that 60 percent of those funds should be directed to the development of the north, namely concrete and infrastructural projects, and not to cover the deficit of local governments.
"Part of the funds will be directed to the development of small and medium-sized enterprises, especially for youth employment and credit fund financing, while part will be transferred to the budget, in order to stabilize public finances and ensure economic development," announced Simović.
He added that the Government wants this project to be completely transparent and that they want to communicate with European partners about it.
The government announced yesterday that the economic citizenship program will be managed by a special government agency that will hire pre-approved marketing agents. Marketing agents will be in charge of successful promotion of this program and attraction of interested investors. The Government will also engage renowned Due Diligence agents specialized in vetting interested applicants as well as one of the renowned audit firms / legal advisors to perform all other necessary vetting of interested candidates.
The government expects that this program will lead to an increase in economic activities and capital movements.
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