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Working in the UK

Isogallardo

Alfrescian
Loyal
I have a degree in design and i thinking of moving to UK and work and live. Can anyone advice me how to get a visa to work there? Thanks
 

nicolewong

Alfrescian
Loyal
Invest £546,000 for a Malta citizenship
Off you go work in the UK or any of the 28 member bloc


Maltese passport and life as an EU citizen for anyone with £546,000
13 Nov 2013

Malta approves selling citizenship for 650,000 euros to non-EU applicants, giving people work and residency rights in the 28-member bloc

Malta’s government has approved a controversial plan to attract “high value” people to the island by selling passports for €650,000 (£546,000).

The scheme is targeted at rich citizens from countries such as Russia and China and will allow them effectively to buy citizenship of the European Union, which Malta joined in 2004.

It is expected to attract up to 300 people a year and is already understood to have had 45 potential applicants, raising the government €30 million in much-need revenues.

But the Maltese opposition says that the process used to vet the applications lacks transparency, and is unhappy that the applicants’ identities will not publicly disclosed. Simon Busutil, the leader of the opposition Nationalist Party, has pledged to revoke the passports if his party is gets into power again.

Mr Busuttil, who sits on a monitoring committee that has access to the applicants’ names, has also threatened to disclose their identities publicly, which could frighten off publicity-shy oligarchs.

“As things stand, revealing the names is not illegal,” Mr Busutil told the Malta Today newspaper. “It’s the government’s action that is devaluating citizenship.”

The move comes five months after Malta’s prime minister, Joseph Muscat, was engaged in a dispute with the European Union over the numbers of illegal migrants coming into Malta via boats operated by people smugglers.He said the 17,000 people who had arrived illegally during the previous decade were putting an unacceptable strain on an island with a population of just 400,000 and little more land than the Isle of Wight.

And he complained that Malta was being treated as “pushover” after the European Court of Human Rights, backed by EU commissioners, blocked moves by his government to fly one boatload of migrants back to Libya.

The reason for Malta’s rather more welcoming attitude to wealthy foreigners is largely financial. With such a small population, €30million is a major boost to the nation’s coffers, which are likely to be drained substantially by a promised 25 per cent cut in electricity rates next year. The government also hopes to raise the tiny island’s international profile by attracting celebrities or sports stars.

But Dr Neil Falzon, the director of Malta’s Aditus human rights charity, said: “This scheme exclusively prioritises the financial contribution, and ignores the contribution of existing migrants, for whom citizenship is generally very difficult because the laws are very tough.

“How about looking at the refugees already on the island, to see what talents they have to offer?”

Another Mediterranean EU member, Cyprus, launched a similar passport scheme earlier this year after being forced to impose a levy on foreign savers who had deposits on its collapsed international banking sector. In an attempt to stop them leaving, the government relaxed citizenship rules for any non-resident investor who had lost more than £2 million through paying the levy. The move was again targeted partly at wealthy Russians, whose savings account for nearly a third of Cyprus’s bank deposits.

Spain is also planning to offer foreigners residency permits if they buy houses worth more than €160,000 – approximately £128,500 – to try to revive the country’s property sector.

Britain has a “Tier 1” investor scheme, under which residency permits for non-EU citizens are more easily available to those with £1 million or more of private finance available for investment in the UK.

Joseph Muscat, the prime minister, said the programme was meant to bring in revenue to the country while attracting "high value" people who could potentially invest in the island.

He estimated the scheme would earn the government 30 million euros in its first year – meaning around 45 people would be sold citizenship, which would also give them work and residency rights in the rest of the 28-member bloc.

Malta is a member of the European Union, a member of the Schengen borderless travel area and has a visa waiver agreement with the United States.

Eric Major, the CEO of Henley and Partners, the international group that will administer the scheme, said that between 200 and 300 individuals were expected to apply every year.

"This will be an open and transparent programme," he said.

The opposition Nationalist Party has strongly opposed the scheme, complaining that it is not linked to residence or investment. Simon Busuttil, the opposition leader, warned in parliament that Malta could end up being compared to tax haven countries in the Caribbean.

Mr Busuttil said his party was not ruling out a proposal to collect signatures to try to force a referendum on the scheme.

The government insists applicants will be vetted and that people connected to crime will not be accepted. It says other EU countries are considering similar schemes.

A small protest was held outside parliament during the vote, with the demonstrators calling for citizenship to be linked to substantial investment, rather than just being sold.

Malta, along with Italy and Greece, has borne much of the brunt of the EU's two-decade immigration crisis, with gangs smuggling poor migrants from Africa to its shores in rickety boats to seek a new life in the European Union.
 
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