Under an existing Armenian law, citizenship can be granted only to ethnic Armenian foreign nationals and other foreigners who have lived in the country for at least three years or have provided “exceptional service” to it.
The police bill sets a wide range of criteria for that service. They include the purchase by a single individual of real estate, government bonds and business assets worth at least $150,000, the opening of an information technology company, benevolence, and significant contributions to Armenian culture, science or medicine.
The bill sparked controversy after being posted on a government website for public debate late last week. Its critics, many of them opposition members or supporters, have expressed serious concerns revolving around national security.
They claim that through the proposed citizenship by investment scheme the authorities are ready to sell Armenian passports to citizens of unfriendly countries, notably Turkey.
The police declined to respond the criticism on Tuesday. A police spokesperson promised to comment later on.
The bill needs to be discussed and approved by Prime Minister Nikol Pashinian’s government because it can be sent to the National Assembly. Government officials have not yet commented on it in public.
Mnatsakan Bichakhchian, a former head of a police division dealing immigration and citizenship issues, sought to dispel the concerns raised by the proposed scheme. He argued that it would not be mandatory for the Armenian authorities.
“It’s not written anywhere that a person buying property or making investments in the economy or buying securities or setting up an enterprise … necessarily qualifies for citizenship,” Bichakhchian told RFE/RL’s Armenian Service.
Besides, he said, Armenia’s National Security Service (NSS) would continue to scrutinize all citizenship applications.
The number of such applications has surged since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. According to police data, 9,917 foreigners applied for Armenian citizenship in the first half of this year, up from 3,448 such requests received in the year-earlier period.
The bulk of the applicants are ethnic Armenian citizens of Russia. They are now seeking Armenian passports because of Western travel restrictions and other sanctions imposed on Moscow.
Armenian law makes these and other Diaspora Armenians eligible for fast-truck dual citizenship and sets no residency requirements for them.
The NSS put forward in July this year a bill stipulating that they must have stayed in the country for at least 60 days in total over the past two years before they can become its citizens. The security service said this would minimize applications from individuals who want Armenian passports to migrate to other parts of the world more easily and/or simply “have nothing to do with Armenianness.” The government has still not officially discussed the bill.