Cypriot Government, as of 2018, decided to limit such citizenships to 700 per year 108. In Malta, the number of successful main applicants (excluding dependants) for the scheme as a whole is capped at 1,800109. However, the Maltese authorities are in the process of updating the law and, following a public consultation, intend to increase the cap by another 1,800. Bulgaria imposes no cap on the number of foreign investors who can apply for citizenship. 4.2.2. Transparency and governance of investor residence schemes today Regarding governance of investor residence schemes, in Malta, unlike for the investor citizenship scheme, there is no regulator. In Cyprus, it is not foreseen that the Supervisory and Control Committee announced for the investor citizenship scheme be in charge also of residence permits. In Bulgaria, the only obligation provided for by the legislation is a notification by the Migration Directorate to the Bulgarian Investment Agency about the permanent residence permits issued under the scheme. Specific monitoring mechanisms and reporting obligations exist in a very limited number of Member States 110. This means that, in most cases, the oversight of the scheme is left to general monitoring mechanisms when they exist, such as parliamentary scrutiny, administrative liability, general reporting of activities to the government, or access to documents requests, and no additional and specific diligence mechanism exists111. A limited number of Member States have made the choice to involve private companies in the running of their residence schemes112, sometimes with a significant role113. In Cyprus, applicants are free to decide to present their application through an authorised representative whose role is limited to act as facilitators and providers of consultancy services. In Malta, applications may be submitted to the competent authorities by registered agents or accredited persons; these registered agents act on behalf of the applicant for all correspondences, 108 109 110 111 112 113 Council of Ministers’ Decision 906/2018. Regulation 12 of LN 47/2014. Spain, Ireland and Portugal. For example, in Spain, the law includes an obligation to prepare an annual report on the implementation of the rules which is prepared by the Ministry of Employment and Social Affairs on a joint request of the Ministries of Foreign Affairs, Interior Affairs and Economy and is then submitted to the Council of Ministers. In Portugal, the General Inspection of Internal Affairs carries out, at least once a year, an audit of the procedure of the investment residence permit. The conclusions and recommendations are notified to the First Commission of the Portuguese Parliament (Constitutional Affairs and Fundamental Rights, Freedoms and Guarantees) and are also made available on the Government's website. However, this website only contains one report, which dates back to 2014. It mentions several recommendations, issued due to some inefficiencies of the procedure, inter alia, the development of internal supervision mechanisms and of a procedures manual. Follow-up to this recommendation is unknown. In Ireland, the Evaluation Committee (made up of senior managers in relevant government departments and State agencies involved in Enterprise and Development) convenes at least four times per year, to assess applications for residency under the investor scheme, and provides considerations and recommendations to the Minister for Justice and Equality on the approval or rejection of applications. Bulgaria, Ireland, France, Italy, Cyprus, Latvia, Hungary, Malta, Netherlands, Romania, United Kingdom. In Ireland, the Irish Naturalisation and Immigration Service has provided information via Parliamentary questions on the following items: the number and value of investor scheme applications per annum since 2012 under each investment option, the number and value of immigrant investor programme applications for social housing investment and nursing home investment in 2017, the criteria against which applications are evaluated, the number of applications approved under the investor scheme, the investment funds for which applications under the IIP have been approved to date, the four investment options available under the programme, the amount of money invested in the investor scheme, the members of the Evaluation Committee. Cyprus, Hungary, Malta. Hungary, Malta. 20