Estonia, citing security risks, has decided to ban Russian and Belarusian citizens without permanent residence permits, as well as companies owned by them, from buying a property, writes ERR News.
Although Estonia rarely issues visas to Russian and Belarusian citizens after Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022, many other European Union countries have not stopped doing so, and this allows citizens of hostile countries to move freely within the bloc. Estonia has called for this to be banned for everyone who fought in Ukraine.
Permanent residence permits will now only be issued if a third-country national has lived in Estonia for at least five years and speaks Estonian at the B1 level.
Estonian Interior Minister Igor Taro pointed out that selling property to Russian and Belarusian citizens with an unknown past is a security risk. The minister stated in his statement on the 29th of January that, with some exceptions, citizens of aggressor states are prohibited from entering and residing in Estonia, and it is only logical that they do not have the right to purchase property.
IT can be used to carry out espionage and organize sabotage operations.
The minister emphasized that these are real threats, and it is time to move from restrictions to a complete ban, as some neighboring countries have already done. Estonia already has a ban on purchasing property in areas near the Estonian-Russian border, as well as on small islands, but Taro pointed out that this is not enough.
True, those citizens of Russia and Belarus who already have a permanent residence permit will also be able to continue to conduct real estate transactions. The minister said that it is known who these people are, because all the necessary information was collected about them before the permanent residence permit was issued.
According to data from the 9th of January, 1,476 Belarusian citizens live in Estonia with temporary residence permits and 1,190 with permanent residence permits. In turn, 7,797 Russian citizens have been granted temporary residence permits and 70,237 have permanent residence permits.
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