The council of ministers met today to sort out Paulo Portas’ Golden Visa scheme which has been suspended due large legal holes appearing in the revised legislation.
Amendments have been made to the amended amendments but the suggested final answers to the entire legal jumble now have to be reviewed by the President of the Republic of Portugal, Cavaco Silva, who may or may not approve the legislation. If he does, the details need to be published in the Official Gazette and Golden Visas again can be issued.
The council of ministers approved the decree as a first step in restarting the generous Golden Visa scheme which encourages foreigners to buy properties in Portugal for over €500,000 in return for travel opportunities within the Schengen area of Europe, while paying zero income tax on non-Portuguese earnings, which in most cases amounts to 100% of their income.
The scheme has been suspended since July 1st but the halt was not widely known until the dwindling figures showed clearly that something was up and the Ministry of Internal Affairs admitted all was not well.
The Golden Visa scheme was frozen when a legal vacuum emerged after a new immigration law went into effect on July 1st. The law repealed several provisions relating to the “Golden Visas”, but did not replace them with others.
In fact, Aliens and Borders Service (SEF) staff had spotted the sloppy legislation and had refused to continue to approve applications while there were so many ‘grey areas’ as it was politely put.
The first set of Paulo Portas amendments were rushed through after Operation Labyrinth identified 11 people involved with the Golden Visa scheme who had been taking full advantages of the pecuniary opportunities available due to an almost total absence of in-built monitoring.
Senior civil servants and underlings were arrested and accused of fiddling the system. The Minister of Internal Affairs, Miguel Macedo resigned and the Golden Visa figures never recovered as the loopholes had been spotted.
Portuguese prosecutors plan to charge Miguel Macedo for his role in the Golden Visa scandal that also implicated the former head of the SEF border police.
After the arrests, Portas launched Golden Visa II assuring the world that it now was watertight and broader in scope to attract 'investment' - a word he always uses when referring to money used to pay for houses by people who then live elsewhere.
The relaunched scheme now has failed and Portas is of course nowhere to be seen or heard as he only likes to be associated with good news stories that involve wide media coverage and with luck, a good lunch.
