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Malta’s government has approved a controversial plan to attract “high value” people to the island by selling passports for €650,000 ($916,000).

The scheme is aimed at rich citizens from the likes of Russia and China, and will allow them effectively to buy citizenship of the European Union, which Malta joined in 2004.

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It is expected to attract up to 300 people a year and is already understood to have had 45 potential applicants, raising the government some €30-million ($42.3-million) in much-needed revenues.

But the Maltese opposition says that the process used to vet the applications lacks transparency, and is unhappy that the applicants’ identities will not be publicly disclosed. Simon Busutil, the leader of the opposition Nationalist Party, has pledged to revoke the passports if his party gets into power again.

Mr Busuttil, who sits on a monitoring committee that has access to the applicants’ names, has also threatened to disclose their identities publicly, which could frighten off publicity-shy oligarchs.