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The Spanish left-wing political party, Más País, wants to scrap the country’s Residence by Investment scheme for foreigners who invest in real estate in the country.
The scheme, which is also known as the Golden Visa and was introduced in 2013 in Spain, amongst others enables foreigners to obtain a Spanish residence permit by purchasing real estate worth at least €500,000 in the country, SchengenVisaInfo.com reports.
Más País is now arguing that this type of investment does not bring any benefits to the country, and as such should be scraped, so that the only way to obtain a Spanish Golden visa remains by launching a business project with job creation or innovation.
The party has submitted a bill to the Congress to scrap the Golden Visa by purchase of property, under the argument that the practice has driven up the prices of housing in the country.
In an interview given for News and Online Radio Cadena SER, the leader of the Más País, Íñigo Errejón, said that it is different to invest by purchasing a home or another type of real estate, and it is different when foreigners invest money in businesses, which later contribute to the growth of the economy of Spain.
He also noted that the government does not control where the money to purchase real estate comes from, a concern that has been also raised by the European Union.
“How easy it is for some gentlemen to come and request a residence permit and buy a house with half a million euros. It looks almost colonial. We have presented a very simple reform, to eliminate this class advantage that is given to some, which is bad for transparency and for containing housing prices,” Errejón said during the interview.
If the bill is approved then the articles 63 and 64 of Law 14/2013 would be modified, eliminating the purchase of real estate in Spain as a way of getting residency in the country.
Spain’s Golden Visa program remains among the most favorite in Europe for foreign investorsdata for the first half of 2022 show. The country has, however, often been criticized for the way it operates the scheme, including by the EU authorities, alongside with other countries operating Golden visas and passports, for being a money laundering tool, including for Russian oligarchs.
In March, last year, the Spanish government had suspended Golden visa issuance for Russiansdue to the invasion of Ukraine by the Russian military. Since the beginning of 2020 until the end of January 2021, a total of 492 Spanish Golden Visas were issued to Russian citizens.
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