Balkan States Spy Golden Opportunity in Passport Sales

In November 2018, the Moldovan authorities launched an ambitious pitch to sell passports in the UAE.

On March 22 this year, meanwhile, the Secretary of State at the Ministry of Economy and Infrastructure, Vitalie Iurcu, launched a similar presentation in Hong Kong for Far Eastern audiences.

It was held under the slogan: "Moldova, the newest pearl of Europe."

Local experts see the claims being made about Moldova as dubious, if not blatantly inaccurate.

Far from being a "pearl", Moldova "has an image as the poorest and the most corrupt country in Europe, with a frozen conflict [in breakaway Transnistria] created and managed by Russia on its soil," Sergiu Gaibu, director of Expert Grup, a Moldova-based think tank, said.

"Do you think that people with good faith will stand in line to take up citizenship of Moldova?" he asks, rhetorically.

At the beginning of March, the EU updated its blacklist of tax havens to include the United Arab Emirates.

The country was implicated in the money laundering of some 434 million US dollars in a massive scam known as the "Russian Laundromat", which laundered billions of dollars out of Russia.

A number of companies based in the UAE were named as "shell" companies, filtering the laundered money.

EU relations with Moldova meanwhile deteriorated sharply after the authorities controversially cancelled the results of the mayoral race in the capital, Chisinau.

After condemning this decision as undemocratic, Brussels last July suspended 100 million euros in aid, prompting the government to hunt for other sources of money.

That month, parliament in Chisinau adopted a controversial fiscal reform package together with the law allowing sales of citizenships.

The price was set...