When governments get broke, governments get desperate. They look for ways to bring in money with no immediate obvious cost. So you get a residents permit for Greece if you buy property valued at over €250,000. You can get Portuguese citizenship after a mere six years if you spend €500,000 on a holiday house. And in Cyprus, €1m usually does the job.
Even the UK is in on the game. Invest £1m in a UK firm, or if you can't be bothered with that, into UK gilts, and spend six months a year in the country for five years, and you have permanent residency in the bag (and eventually a passport) wherever you come from.
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