Citizenship

British Ambassador to Athens Kate Smith on Tuesday hailed a letter sent earlier in the day by Greek Foreign Minister Giorgos Katrougalos to his UK counterpart, Jeremy Hunt, vowing to safeguard the rights of Britons living in Greece after Brexit.

The Ministry of Justice is proposing measures to tighten control and prevent abuses in the granting of Bulgarian citizenship.

The European Commission will warn that schemes in some EU countries that allow wealthy foreigners to buy citizenship or residency could raise risks of money laundering, corruption and tax evasion.

The warnings are included in a draft report, seen by Reuters, that is expected to be published on Wednesday by the European Union's executive.

The European Commission said on Wednesday it will provide guidance to European Union member-states on how to manage national schemes to sell passports and residency permits to wealthy foreign citizens, as campaigners and lawmakers warned of money laundering risks.

Programs run by some European Union countries to sell passports and residency permits to wealthy foreign citizens pose risks of money laundering as some of the schemes are not properly managed, campaign groups said on Wednesday.

The share of Greek nationals aged 20 to 64 living in other countries of the European Union rose to 6 percent in 2017 from 4.7 percent in 2007, data from Eurostat have shown.

In contrast, the share of Cypriot nationals residing abroad decreased from 7.1 percent in 2007 to 3.9 percent in 2017.

The number of people who acquired Greek citizenship more than doubled in the past two years, mainly due to the implementation of a June 2015 law benefiting children born in Greece to foreign parents and thos who have been in the Greek education system for a certain number of years.

The largest group of foreign nationals that obtained Greek citizenship in 2016 were Albanians (88 percent), followed by Ukrainians (1.5 percent) and Russians (1.2 percent), according to data from the European Union's statistics office Eurostat.

According to the same data, 33,210 foreigners became Greek citizens that year.

Citizens of EU Member States who live or seek employment in Germany can not permanently be excluded from the social assistance system. This was ruled by the German court about social affairs. Reports Mediapool. 

'A History of the Ottoman Empire' by Douglas A. Howard (Cambridge University Press, 393 pages, $35)