At the European Parliament in Brussels, policymakers, legal experts and regional representatives gathered to debate the future of Europe’s golden visa programmes, as growing geopolitical tensions and security concerns place investor residence schemes under renewed scrutiny.
Hosting the event, MEP Dimitris Tsiodras (EPP, Greece) argued that the discussion was particularly timely given the increasing political attention surrounding investment migration schemes across Europe. He noted that different forms of investor residence programmes have existed in multiple Member States for years, generating significant economic benefits while also exposing vulnerabilities that now require closer examination.
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MEP Dimitris Tsiodras (EPP, Greece)
Tsiodras stressed that golden visas had contributed to foreign investment, economic activity and the construction sector in several countries, particularly in southern Europe. At the same time, he acknowledged that “concerns around due diligence and security could no longer be ignored”.
“I think that we can manage to combine the benefits from Golden Visa and to close the loopholes,” he said, arguing that stricter controls and better enforcement mechanisms are necessary at European level.
Echoing Tsiodras’s comments, MEP Loucas Fourlas (EPP, Cyprus) then highlighted the economic importance of golden visas for countries hit hard by the 2008 economic crisis. Whilst more than a dozen countries have introduced similar schemes, Fourlas lamented that Cyprus “has at times been particularly and unfairly singled out”.
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MEP Loucas Fourlas (EPP, Cyprus)
Noting the security concerns arising from legal loopholes that certain foreign powers hostile to Europe could exploit by taking advantage of the current disparate national systems, Fourlas emphasised the importance of a coordinated approach aimed at regulating the issuance of visas through enhanced security checks, without undermining the economic benefits that visas can generate.
As Christina Georgaki, Founder & Managing Partner at Georgaki and Partners, took the floor, she stressed the importance of taking a holistic view of the situation so as not to unilaterally restrict the issuance of visas.
Citing in particular the case of Greece, which, she said, had received only “around 10,000 applications for this type of visa” in 2025, Georgaki called for a continental mechanism involving more checks to prevent the abuses previously observed. This would ensure that investments are accompanied by “integration into local communities” and actual residence in the area.
Christina Georgaki, Founder & Managing Partner at Georgaki and Partners
The economic perspective was then further developed by Kathleen Figueiredo Laissy, Director of the Representation Office of the Autonomous Region of Madeira, who explained how Portugal had significantly reformed its own programme in recent years. She noted that the previous model, heavily centred on real estate investment, had contributed to pressure on housing prices in cities such as Lisbon, Porto and Madeira.
Residency by investment should be treated as a totally different policy tool. It sits in the middle of finance, sociology, and geopolitical issues of the EU
According to Figueiredo Laissy, Portugal has since redirected the scheme towards investments with “higher added value”, including research, innovation, company financing and job creation. She explained that property purchases alone are no longer sufficient to qualify for residency through investment.
“You need to invest in a company, you need to invest in research, you need to create jobs,” she said, describing the reforms as an effort to reduce speculative investment while preserving economic attractiveness.
Still, she warned that fragmented national approaches continue creating loopholes across the Schengen area. For outermost regions such as Madeira, attracting international capital remains economically important due to geographical and structural constraints. However, she argued that investment migration programmes should operate within a more coherent European framework built around common standards for transparency and due diligence.
Kathleen Figueiredo Laissy, Director of the Representation Office of the Autonomous Region of Madeira
Security concerns quickly emerged as one of the dominant themes of the discussion. MEP Paulius Saudargas (EPP, Lithuania) argued that while investment schemes may generate economic benefits, they also create vulnerabilities because residency rights granted by one Member State provide access across the wider Schengen area.
“How can one country’s authority decide who can come to the whole Schengen area?” he asked. Saudargas focused particularly on risks linked to authoritarian regimes and hybrid threats, warning that countries such as Russia and Belarus have previously used migration and citizenship strategically for geopolitical purposes. He also raised concerns about organised crime, money laundering and the possibility of investors using intermediary passports obtained through third countries to bypass restrictions.
For Lithuania, he explained, these concerns are particularly sensitive because of the country’s direct exposure to Russian and Belarusian influence operations.
MEP Paulius Saudargas (EPP, Lithuania)
The conversation then turned toward how European policymakers could address these risks without entirely dismantling investment migration systems.
Georgaki argued that residency-by-investment schemes should not simply be treated as immigration tools, but as instruments with wider geopolitical and financial implications. “Residency by investment should be treated as a totally different policy tool. It sits in the middle of finance, sociology, and geopolitical issues of the EU,” she said.
She also warned that inconsistencies between national systems have created “vulnerabilities that can be exploited through fast-track citizenship schemes” outside the EU. She cited examples where investors may first acquire passports from third countries before using them to apply for European residency programmes, complicating background checks and due diligence processes.
How can one country’s authority decide who can come to the whole Schengen area?
She made the case for stronger verification systems and coordinated EU-level oversight are necessary to prevent abuse while maintaining the economic value of legitimate investment programmes. She also stressed that residency rights create long-term links with host countries and therefore require continuous monitoring rather than one-off approval procedures.
Housing pressures also remained central throughout the debate, as speakers acknowledged that investment migration programmes had, in some cases, contributed to rising property prices in major urban areas and tourist regions. Both Portuguese and Greek reforms were presented as attempts to reduce the attractiveness of purely speculative real estate investments, particularly linked to short-term rental markets.
Participants repeatedly returned to the question of harmonisation and unanimously warned that the absence of common standards risks creating a “race to the bottom” between Member States competing to attract investors through more permissive schemes. Figueiredo Laissy specifically argued that while flexibility should remain for regions with specific economic realities, the EU nonetheless needs “clearer common rules to avoid fragmentation” and maintain trust across the Schengen area.
By the end of the discussion, the broad consensus in the room was that the debate around golden visas has fundamentally changed. What was once viewed mainly as an economic tool is now increasingly tied to broader questions of security, strategic autonomy and European governance.
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