"Citizenship must not be up for sale," said Viviane Reding, then a vice-president of the European Commission, last year. Residency, it seems, is another matter. Though not as brazen as the small Caribbean states that sell foreigners passports for a few hundred thousand dollars, roughly half of the members of the European Union now offer long-term visas to big foreign investors. America has done so since 1990; Britain since 1994. In 2012 and 2013 Greece, Portugal, and Spain piled in, hoping to succour their sickly economies. Such visas do not come cheap. Britain just raised its price: would-be residents must now invest £2m ($3.1m). The Portuguese government offers one of the least expensive schemes, but its cut-price offering still involves putting €500,000 ($560,000) into property (see chart).
展开▼
