Amid mounting pressure from the European Commission towards the 28 members of the EU to apply stricter conditions regarding the provision of passports to foreign investors, Cyprus again finds itself at the centre of a new controversy involving the Eastern Mediterranean island nation’s liberal ‘golden visa’ regime after Nicosia issued a Cypriot passport to a scandal-plagued Malaysian financier named Jho Low, who is alleged to be part of a multibillion-dollar international corruption scheme.

The national outcry that followed has forced the Cypriot Government to announce a series of steps in order to save the reputation of the country’s investment programme, as well as its broader economy.

The Government is moving to revoke the citizenship of 26 individuals who received their passports through the Cyrpus’ highly controversial ‘‘investment-for-passport’’ initiative. The Cypriot government tightened the rules for gaining citizenship in May were announced that included a requirement for all applicants to have a valid Schengen visa before they can apply to a Cypriot passport.

The golden visa programme offers a residence permit and other benefits to wealthy business non-EU citizens. The initiative was first launched in 2007, with much stricter rules that required an investment of around €25 million to earn a passport. That investment amount was significantly reduced in 2011 to €10 million and, as a result of the country’s financial collapse in 2013, the amount decreased further €2 million by 2016.

In the past dozen years since the introduction of the golden visa programme, 4,000 citizens, most of whom are from Russia and other post-Soviet republics, have acquired a Cypriot passport, which has brought €6 billion of investments into the local real estate market.

A Reuters investigative report in October revealed that Cyprus had also given ‘golden passports’ to eight relatives and associates of Hun Sen, the dictatorial prime minister of Cambodia who ruled for 35 years. Officials say that the withdrawal of 26 passports includes those provided to Low and the Cambodians, as well as nationals from Russia, China, Kenya, and Iran.