December 20 – Billionaire oligarch and Chelsea owner Roman Abramovich has become an EU citizen, three years after withdrawing his application for a UK visa amid diplomatic tensions between London and Moscow.
Abramovich has been granted Portuguese citizenship to go with his Russian and Israeli ones and based on his Jewish heritage.
Abramovich’s successful application, reportedly granted back in April, used a Portuguese law offering naturalisation to descendants of Sephardic Jews who were expelled from the Iberian peninsula during the Inquisition, according to a report in the Portuguese newspaper Público.
Thousands of Israeli Jews have been granted Portuguese citizenship since the law was passed in 2015.
In 2018 Abramovich elected not to pursue a UK visa application in the wake of international recriminations following the Salisbury poisoning incident.
His new EU passport means he would need to pass the UK’s point-based post-Brexit immigration system and meet “specific requirements” if he now chose to stay and work in the UK.
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