Last week, the Cypriot media returned to the topic of accelerated citizenship following parliamentary inquiries by independent MP Alexandra Attalides.
The Cyprus Mail, a publication controlled by Russian oligarchs, published the MP’s comments on the issue.
There are currently three legal ways to obtain a Cypriot passport. Two of them — by descent or through marriage to a citizen of the Republic — are not available to most foreigners. Naturalization remains the main option, the traditional route for third-country nationals.
According to Article 111 of the Population Registration Law of 2002 (Ν.141(I)/2002), this requires living in Cyprus for at least eight years (the last year continuously), having an impeccable reputation, being financially independent, and meeting a number of other criteria.
However, recent amendments to the law (Article 111B(2)) have created a new path to citizenship for so-called «highly qualified» employees of certain companies — or, as they are often referred to in official rhetoric, «talents.»
Formally, the law does not specify the field of activity, but in practice it primarily concerns specialists in the IT sector.
Such workers can now apply for citizenship after four years of residence instead of eight. In addition, language requirements have been lowered to level A2 («basic») instead of the usual B1, although in this case the mandatory residence period is extended by one year.
At Attalides’ request, Interior Minister Constantinos Ioannou said that 208 foreigners and 65 members of their families have already obtained citizenship under the new law, and another 360 applications are pending.
However, when asked to name the companies where the new citizens work and indicate the number of passports for each of them, the minister replied that the ministry does not keep such data and is not required to do so by law.
Such a response from the Minister of the Interior, who by definition should have this information, can hardly be interpreted as anything other than a deliberate concealment of information about the companies that employ the new citizens of Cyprus. This raises the question: why is he hiding this data and in whose interests?
This is what prompted Attalides to draft a bill that she intends to submit to parliament next month. «Companies can sell citizenship,» Atalides warns, calling the amended law an attempt to circumvent or effectively revive the controversial «citizenship by investment» (CIP) program, which was shut down in 2020.
The bill provides for the mandatory registration of the applicant’s employer, their citizenship, position, qualifications, and skills. «The ministry is pretending to know nothing — just like during the CIP,» the MP notes.
According to her, foreigners are already advertising an accelerated naturalization program for «talent» on TikTok: «Come to Cyprus, find a job, get a passport.» «In other words, the scheme is already moving forward, and if there is no control, passports will be sold by companies, not the state,» she said.
With the adoption of amendments to the naturalization law in 2023, the state effectively transferred to private companies the right to «sell» Cypriot citizenship — almost the same scheme as the infamous «golden passport» program, which was abolished in 2020.
«I voted against this law. We could have simply granted such specialists a residence permit for the duration of their employment, and that would have been enough,» Attalides rightly pointed out.
«In a few years, this will become a new high-profile scandal,» she predicted, and it is difficult to disagree with her.
At the same time, the Cyprus Mail article fails to mention that the amendments to the law (Article 111B(2)) were adopted thanks to the lobbying efforts of the Techisland association and its founder and director, Alexei Gubarev, personally. This is stated quite openly in a Forbes article entitled «Northern Import: How Russian-speaking migrants changed Cyprus.»
According to this publication, it was thanks to Gubarev’s efforts that around 200 companies, almost all from Russia, moved to Cyprus, often in their entirety. And it was in the interests of the employees of these structures that he secured amendments to the citizenship law.
Thus, the vast majority of the «talents» who received citizenship appear to have Russian roots and are linked to Gubarev’s business structures or companies under the Techisland umbrella.
The new fast-track naturalization scheme is essentially a reincarnation of the «golden passport» program under the guise of IT sector development. The only difference is that whereas previously the state earned money from selling passports through the CIP, now Gubarev is the beneficiary of this scheme.
In this context, it is understandable why Gubarev is so keen to prevent the disclosure of information about the employers and origins of the 208 foreigners who have already obtained Cypriot citizenship, as well as the 360 applicants who are still waiting for their passports. If this information becomes public, it will be impossible for him to hide his true goals and the methods he uses to achieve them. Many will inevitably ask: how did Gubarev gain such enormous influence over the government and parliament of an EU member state that he is able to push through laws that serve his interests, and for what purpose did he bring thousands of Russian citizens into the country and grant them Cypriot citizenship en masse through a scheme he created?
In Cyprus, no one except Cyprus Daily News is asking such questions yet — his influence on the local establishment, especially on the political parties that feed from his hand, is too great. There is no hope for the Cypriot media. Fees for providing information services to Gubarev and Techisland make up a significant part of their income.
But Brussels may well take an interest in this phenomenon and ask Nicosia how a man with dubious ties to Russia and its special services managed to gain such enormous influence over the political processes of an EU member state and effectively become a parallel power in the Republic of Cyprus.
The fact that Interior Minister Constantinos Ioannou is withholding information from parliament that he undoubtedly has and is obliged to provide at the request of MPs looks like a direct fulfillment of Alexei Gubarev’s will. There is almost no doubt about this.
Indirect confirmation of this can be found in a Forbes article describing how he, along with five other Cypriot ministers, took part in the construction of a private school for Alexander Shkuratov, whose biography is closely linked to Russian state structures, at Gubarev’s request. Who else in Cyprus could ask five ministers to build a school for their acquaintance and have them happily rush to fulfill his request?
Attalides’ concerns are not unfounded: this is not just about personnel policy in the IT sector, but about a new corruption scheme involving Cypriot passports and the accelerated transformation of Cyprus into a branch of the Kremlin in the European Union.
Joseph Bronstein
Read more on the topic:
Gubarev’s importation: Putin’s IT guys take over Cyprus
Russian Capital and Technology: How Putin’s Oligarchs Penetrate European Business Through Cyprus
A journalist is on trial in Cyprus for an article he did not write
“Golden Flight” of a Russian Cypriot: Alexey Gubarev’s Corrupt Schemes in Kyrgyzstan
Cyprus justice with a Russian accent