NICOSIA, Cyprus -- Cyprus plans to lift a ban on casinos and offer firms tax exemptions on profits reinvested on the island under a package of reforms to kick-start its ailing economy, its president said on Monday.

Cyprus's euro zone partners agreed on a 10 billion euro ($12.8 billion) rescue package last Monday following weeks of tense negotiations, but its tough terms look set to deepen the island's recession, shrink the banking sector and cost thousands of jobs.

President Nicos Anastasiades, who briefed ministers on the economy during an informal meeting, said the 12-point growth plan would be put to the cabinet for approval within the next 15 days.

The program includes measures to attract foreign investment to the island -- a hub for offshore finance -- as well as tax exemptions on business profits reinvested there, and the easing of payment terms and interest rates on loans.

With about 68 billion euros ($87.16 billion) in its banks, Cyprus has a vastly outsized financial system that has attracted deposits from abroad, especially Russia.

In a bid to attract more tourists to the south of the island, it also hopes to lift a ban on casinos, which so far operate legally only on Turkish-controlled northern Cyprus.

Speaking to reporters after a memorial service to commemorate the 1955 armed campaign against British rule, Anastasiades said the government would focus on "growth and incentives for growth."

Cyprus's bailout is the first to impose steep losses on depositors and is expected to hit business activity especially hard. Major depositors in Cyprus's biggest lender, Bank of Cyprus, will lose around 60 percent of savings above 100,000 euros.

Banks reopened on Thursday after a nearly two-week hiatus to avert a bank run, but the ripple effect of their closure is likely to strangle business on the island for a long time to come.

Anastadiades has defended the rescue deal as painful but essential, saying that without it, Cyprus had faced certain banking collapse and risked becoming the first country to be pushed out of the European single currency.

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A solution to Cyprus' bailout crisis within the framework set down by the European Union may be possible within "the next few hours," the deputy leader of the island's ruling Democratic Rally party said on Friday.

"There is cautious optimism that in the next few hours we may be able to reach an agreed platform so parliament can approve these specific measures which will be consistent with the approach, the framework and the targets agreed at the last Eurogroup," Averof Neophytou told reporters. 

The news came hours after the Cypriot finance minister left Moscow empty-handed when Russia turned down appeals for aid, leaving the island to strike a bailout deal with the EU before Tuesday or face the collapse of its financial system.

The rebuff left Cyprus looking increasingly isolated, with the deadline looming to find billions of euros demanded by the EU in return for a 10 billion euro ($12.93 billion) bailout.

Without it, the European Central Bank said on Wednesday it would cut off emergency funds to the country's teetering banks, potentially pushing Cyprus out of Europe's single currency.

"The talks have ended as far as the Russian side is concerned," Russian Finance Minister Anton Siluanov told reporters after two days of crisis talks with his Cypriot counterpart, Michael Sarris.

Having angrily rejected a proposed levy on tax deposits in exchange for the EU bailout, Nicosia had turned to the Kremlin to renegotiate a loan deal, win more financing and lure Russian investors to cut-price Cypriot banks and gas reserves.

Wealthy Russians have billions of euros at stake in Cyprus's outsized and now crippled banking sector.

But Siluanov said Russian investors were not interested in Cypriot gas and that the talks had ended without result.

Sarris was due to fly home, where lawmakers were preparing to debate measures proposed by the government to raise at least some of the 5.8 billion euros ($7.48 billion) required to clinch the EU bailout.

They included a "solidarity fund" bundling state assets, including future gas revenues and nationalized pension funds, as the basis for an emergency bond issue and likened by JP Morgan to "a national fire sale".

They were also considering a bank restructuring bill that officials said would see the country's second largest lender, Cyprus Popular Bank, split into good and bad assets, and a government call for the power to impose capital controls to stem a flood of funds leaving the island when banks reopen on Tuesday after a week-long shutdown.

'Playing with fire'
There was no silver bullet, however, and Cyprus's partners in the 17-nation currency bloc were growing increasingly unimpressed.

"I still believe we will get a settlement, but Cyprus is playing with fire," Volker Kauder, a leading conservative ally of German Chancellor Angela Merkel, told public television ARD.

There were long lines at ATMs on Thursday and angry scenes outside parliament, where hundreds of demonstrators gathered after rumors spread that Popular Bank would be closed down and its staff laid off.

"We have children studying abroad, and next month we need to send them money," protester Stalou Christodoulido said through tears. "We'll lose what money we had and saved for so many years if the bank goes down."

Cypriots have been stunned by the pace of the unfolding drama, having elected conservative President Nicos Anastasiades barely a month ago on a mandate to secure a bailout. News that the deal would involve a levy on bank deposits, even for smaller savers, outraged Cypriots, who raided cash machines last weekend.

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Full business coverage from NBC News

This story was originally published on Fri Mar 22, 2013 6:02 AM EDT

Claudio Lavanga / NBC News

Workers cover 2,000-year-old graffiti in Pompeii with Plexiglas on Tuesday.

Published at 8:23 a.m. ET: POMPEII, Italy -- On Tuesday evening, the sound of a pneumatic drill broke the silence that has been part of Pompeii's character since the eruption of Mount Vesuvius buried the city in 79 A.D.

Three workers cut holes in one of the city's historic walls, attached mounts with concrete and fixed a Plexiglas cover to protect 2,000-year-old graffiti.

"Sorry we don't have hard hats on," the men said, as if not following safety standards was the only thing wrong with their supposed preservation work. In fact, according to experts, the workmen were defacing priceless antiquities.

"Oh my god, look at them. Do you see an archaeologist around?" said Dario Sautto, a member of Italy's Cultural Heritage Observatory who witnessed the work. 

As is so often the case with the preservation of Pompeii, the cure appears to be worse than the disease, he said. 

"Those men are bricklayers, without a qualified supervisor in sight," he added. "They are just patching things up ahead of the visit of the [European Union] commissioner."

Indeed, on Wednesday, Johannes Hahn, regional affairs commissioner for the European Union (EU), was surveying Pompeii and discussing  the start of the Great Pompeii Project, a multimillion-dollar plan to revamp and secure the decaying archaeological site -- and stop patch-up jobs like the one Sautto had just witnessed. 

Pompeii, an ancient city blanketed by 20 feet of volcanic ash and pumice after Vesuvius erupted almost 2,000 years ago, is just one of thousands of Italian sites that have attracted tourists and archaeologists alike for hundreds of years.  And for decades it has symbolized the failings of the Italian state in preserving its rich historical, cultural and archaeological heritage.

In 2010, one stone too many crumbled -- the famous House of Gladiators, used for training before fights in the nearby amphitheater, collapsed into a pile of rubble. The world's archaeological community cringed, and so did the EU.

So the EU pledged to spend 105 million euros (about $142 million) to make sure that interventions like the one witnessed Tuesday become a thing of the past. 

The project consists of "using some of the most sophisticated and up-to-date technology to preserve the ruins of the site, which has been badly damaged in recent years," the EU said Tuesday.

Franco Origlia / Getty Images, file

The House of the Gladiators was cordoned off after its collapse in 2010, drawing attention to the fragile state of Pompeii.

Despite 2.3 million tourists visiting the ruins of Pompeii every year, the site has slowly been falling into decay due to mismanagement, corruption and the influence of the "Camorra," the local mafia.

Millions of dollars have been spent in the past to try to prevent the UNESCO World Heritage Site falling into disarray, but every attempt to turn the ancient site into a truly modern tourist attraction has gone up in smoke. 

On Tuesday, Annamaria Caccavo, a businesswoman who won a multimillion-dollar restoration tender to work on Pompeii, was placed under house arrest on charges of aiding abuse of office, corrupting a public official and fraud.

"The problem with Pompeii is that they always treat its preservation like an emergency," Sautto said. "But the emergency started in 79 A.D., not today. And still they can't figure out how to save it."

Caccavo's arrest, which came a day before the EU officially stepped in to straighten up the ruins' management, sent a signal that legality and transparency will play a major role in the new regime.

Pompeii has never been famous for its preservation, and pieces fall off its ruins regularly.  Only 30 percent of the site is open to the public, with restoration works frozen in time, just like the casts of its citizens who died when Vesuvius erupted. Guards around the site are outnumbered by stray dogs, and public toilets are a lucky find in the maze of ruins.

The EU's Hahn said he took more than a professional interest in helping ensure the protection of Pompeii's treasures. 

"I have taken a great personal interest in getting this project off the ground ever since I heard about the collapse of the House of the Gladiators in November 2010, when I happened to be in Rome," he said. "Here is a chance not just to help save something which is part of Europe's cultural identity but to revitalize (the regional) economy by attracting more visitors and creating new jobs."

In Pompeii, it's a race against time to preserve what's left of this ancient site, before it becomes history.

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Matt Dunham / AP

Britain's Prime Minister David Cameron makes a long-awaited speech on the UK's place in the European Union in London on Wednesday.

U.K. Prime Minister David Cameron on Wednesday announced Britain would hold a referendum on whether it should leave the European Union if his Conservative Party wins the next election.

His comments prompted a largely angry reaction from European politicians, who condemned Cameron for "playing with fire" and trying to bend the 27-nation bloc to his will.

France’s Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius revealed he had recently told a group of British businessmen that "if Britain wants to leave Europe, we will roll out the red carpet for you," Reuters reported Wednesday.

In the written version of his speech posted on the prime minister’s website, Cameron said people in the U.K. felt the EU was “now heading for a level of political integration that is far outside Britain’s comfort zone” and claimed “democratic consent for the EU in Britain is now wafer thin.”

“People ... resent the interference in our national life by what they see as unnecessary rules and regulation. And they wonder what the point of it all is,” he said.

“It is time for the British people to have their say. It is time to settle this European question in British politics. I say to the British people: this will be your decision,” Cameron added. “And when that choice comes, you will have an important choice to make about our country’s destiny.”

'Charting our own course'
He said that he understood “the appeal of going it alone, of charting our own course.”

“Of course Britain could make her own way in the world, outside the EU, if we chose to do so … But the question we will have to ask ourselves is this: is that the very best future for our country?” Cameron said.

The center-right Conservative Party contains a number of anti-EU lawmakers and has come under pressure on the issue with the rise of the UK Independence Party.

Cameron has talked about renegotiating the U.K.’s relationship with Brussels and told parliament later Wednesday he would campaign to stay in the EU -- if he was successful in reforming it.

But he repeatedly refused to answer questions from Labour Party leader Ed Miliband on how he would vote in the referendum if he was unsuccessful.

Guy Verhofstadt, leader of the Liberal Democrat group in the European Parliament, said Cameron was “playing with fire” by saying he would renegotiate Britain’s membership and hold a referendum, according to ITV News. “He ... is raising false expectations that can never be met,” he said.

And European Parliament President Martin Schulz said the speech was “one of the worst I heard in a long time,” ITV News reported.

Schulz said Cameron was in favor of the single European market but also was also complaining about the regulations that govern it. “So, what does he want -- the internal market or the regulations? … I find what Mr. Cameron is doing very implausible,” he added.

Fabius, the French official, said it was as if Britain had joined a soccer club and then suddenly said "let's play rugby," Reuters reported. And German Foreign Minister Guido Westerwelle said “cherry-picking” what the U.K. liked about the EU and leaving the rest was “not an option.”

Nick Robinson, the BBC’s political editor, wrote that Cameron would never make a “bigger gamble.”

“He is gambling that his referendum promise will calm rather than stir the fury of Eurosceptics both inside and outside his party, that he can persuade 26 other European leaders to give the UK the deal he wants and that voters will then choose to back it,” he said.

“If he pulls it off he will restore [Conservative] Party unity, see off the threat of UKIP, put Labour on the back foot and secure a relationship with the EU which is no longer a political nightmare for him and his party,” he added. “If he doesn't the name Cameron will be added to those of [Harold] Wilson, [Margaret] Thatcher and [John] Major - those whose premierships were destroyed by that most toxic issue in politics - Europe.”

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Yves Herman / Reuters, file

Britain's Prime Minister David Cameron (right) faces some tough negotiations with the likes of Germany's Chancellor Angela Merkel (left).

Updated at 8:55 p.m. ET: British Prime Minister David Cameron has cancelled a major speech, originally scheduled for Friday, because of the uncertain outcome of the hostage-taking crisis at an Algerian gas plant that started Wednesday, the Telegraph reported.

An unknown number of the hostages — which included dozens of foreign nationals and Algerians — were killed as Algerian forces attempted a rescue mission that reportedly went awry late Thursday. One Briton was reported dead in the hostage crisis, and Cameron warned that the country should be prepared for "further bad news."

Original report:

LONDON — It says a lot about Britain's ambivalent attitude toward its membership of the European Union that the UK Independence Party (UKIP), which wants the country to leave the bloc, has 12 seats in the European Parliament.

Although UKIP has yet to have any politicians elected to Britain's Westminster parliament, recent polls suggest it is surging in popularity.

In several recent by-elections, the party even placed ahead of the Liberal Democrats, junior partners with the Conservatives in Britain's coalition government.

Amid UKIP's rise and pressure from elements within his own Conservative party to loosen ties with Europe, British Prime Minister David Cameron is scheduled to give a key speech Friday mapping out how he sees his country's future role in the 27-nation bloc. 

Britain is so close to continental Europe — the English Channel is just 26 miles across at its narrowest point — that people sometimes swim to France. But, politically, the country has arguably not been further away for decades.

The right-leaning Telegraph newspaper reported Thursday that "Cameron is expected to pledge to renegotiate Britain’s [EU] membership, if he is re-elected in 2015, after which the revised relationship will be the subject of a referendum."

Reuters described Cameron's looming speech as "one of the most closely watched Europe addresses by a British leader since World War Two."

Political and business leaders have voiced concerns over the risk of calling a referendum that could see Britain leaving the EU, which offers a market of 500 million people on its doorstep.

There are those who want to extend British influence in the EU and build upon what one group called "Britain's epic post-war achievements" within the bloc, such as free trade and security. Last year, the EU was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for turning the "continent of war" into a "continent of peace."

And Reuters noted that "international partners from the United States to Germany and Ireland have made it clear they oppose a British EU exit and believe that such a move would isolate and damage Britain itself."

But critics of the U.K.'s current relationship with Europe have multiple targets. EU legislation takes precedence over national laws in many key sectors and EU regulations dominate some industries.

Europe's common currency, the euro, is mired in turmoil, leaving most Britons glad the U.K. kept the pound.

John Curtice, electoral analyst and professor of politics at Strathclyde University, said UKIP’s poll surge was a major factor in pushing Britain’s relationship with the rest of Europe to the center of the political agenda.

"There is no doubt that recent electoral success for UKIP has made Europe an issue for Conservatives," he said.

"There is enormous pressure on David Cameron from within his party," he added. "Many Conservative members of parliament are looking ahead to the next election and thinking, 'I'll be damned if I lose because my party cannot come up with a coherent policy on Europe that voters can support.'"

Yves Herman / Reuters, file

The rising star of British politics? UK Independence Party leader Nigel Farage stands near a coffin symbolizing "the death of the Euro" during a demonstration in 2011 urging the European Union to stop extending help to Greece.

Curtice said UKIP’s poll ratings appeared to be driven by mid-term protest votes that traditionally went to Liberal Democrats, but which were up for grabs now that the party has joined the Conservatives in the ruling coalition.

"However, regardless of why UKIP is getting attention, its presence is making Europe a problem for the Conservative party and its supporters, many of whom are instinctively wary of Europe," Curtice added.

One key challenge for Cameron is that getting the EU to change has proved notoriously difficult for successive British prime ministers. Cameron has also often been left isolated at EU summits due to his opposition to various proposals.

Professor Iain Begg, of the European Institute at the London School of Economics, said a hard-line stance by Cameron could potentially result in "amendments to some of the [EU] directives that Britain finds unpalatable." 

However, he said that a total renegotiation of the treaties that bind the EU together was unlikely.

Cameron will need to reconcile demands from so-called Euroskeptics within his own party for the repatriation of powers from Brussels with calls from other parts of his coalition government for closer European integration.

And he'll need to do so while not offending his political peers and allies in Europe and beyond.

Speaking to Reuters, one unnamed EU diplomat wondered how Cameron could walk that tightrope:

"Britain's Europe policy has been confusing for a long time. He's going to have to sort out a lot of misunderstandings before he can convince people of what he's doing," said the official, underlining that uncertainty would not go away overnight. 

"The risk remains of an exit by mistake. It shouldn't happen, but other things that shouldn't have happened did."

Finland's prime minister signaled he was worried about what Cameron might announce during Friday's speech.

"The EU without Britain is pretty much the same as fish without chips," Jyrki Katainen told reporters in Brussels on Wednesday. "It's not a meal any more." 

NBC News' Alastair Jamieson and Reuters contributed to this report.

Suzanne Plunkett / Reuters

European Commission President Jose Manuel Barroso, left, European Council President Herman van Rompuy and European Parliament President Martin Schulz, seen here on Sunday, will receive the Nobel Peace Prize on behalf of the European Union in Oslo on Monday.

Updated at 9:20 a.m. ET: OSLO, Norway -- The European Union received the Nobel Peace Prize on Monday, as the Norwegian committee looked beyond Europe's current malaise to recognize its decades of stability and democracy after the horrors of two world wars.

Fittingly for an institution with no single leader, the EU sent three of its presidents to the Oslo ceremony for the 2012 prize, which critics including former Nobel laureate Desmond Tutu say is undeserved.

About 20 European government leaders, including German Chancellor Angela Merkel, French President Francois Hollande and British Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg, also attended the ceremony.

"Sixty years of peace. It's the first time that this has happened in the long history of Europe," Herman Van Rompuy, the president of the European Council, said before the ceremony.

"The facts prove that the European Union is a peacekeeping instrument of the first order," said Van Rompuy, who was on hand to collect the prize along with European Commission President Jose Manuel Barroso and Martin Schulz, the president of the European Parliament.

Two Americans win Nobel for work on matching different economic agents

Economic pain
Europe is suffering feeble economic growth or outright recession, soaring unemployment and a number of its member states are unable to pay their debts. It has been called the worst economic crisis since World War II.

The economic pain has provoked social unrest in a number of member states, notably near-bankrupt Greece.

However, the Nobel committee focused on the EU's role in reconciling the disparate, warring corners of the "old continent" -- the overarching success being to turn Germany and France from enemies into allies.

From just six countries that agreed to pool their coal and steel production in the 1950s to 27 member states today -- and 28 once Croatia joins next year -- the EU now stretches from Portugal to Romania, Finland to Malta and sets rules and regulations that have a bearing on more than 500 million people.

"The stabilizing part played by the EU has helped to transform most of Europe from a continent of war to a continent of peace," the Nobel committee said on Oct. 12 when it announced the EU had won, an unexpected decision.

Complete coverage of Europe on NBCNews.com

The prize money of $1.25 million will be given to projects that help children struggling in war zones, with the recipients to be announced next week. The EU has said it will match the prize money, doubling the sum to be given to selected aid projects.

The awarding of the prize to the EU has provoked criticism from some quarters.

Complete World coverage on NBCNews.com

Three Peace Prize laureates -- Tutu, Mairead Maguire of Northern Ireland and Adolfo Perez Esquivel from Argentina -- have demanded that prize money of $1.2 million not be paid this year. They said the bloc contradicts the values associated with the prize because it relies on military force to ensure security.

Amnesty International said Monday that EU leaders should not "bask in the glow of the prize," warning that xenophobia and intolerance are now on the rise in Europe.

The Nobel Peace Prize is awarded each year in Oslo on Dec. 10, the anniversary of Alfred Nobel's death in 1896. Similar ceremonies are to be held in the Swedish capital, Stockholm, for the Nobel laureates in medicine, chemistry, physics and literature.

Reuters and The Associated Press contributed to this report.

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Emilio Morenatti / AP

Supporters of center-right Catalan Nationalist Coalition leader Artur Mas wave pro-independence "estelada" flags during a campaign meeting in Barcelona, Spain, Thursday.

GIRONA, Spain -- As in towns across this wealthy northeastern region, the maze-like cobblestone streets of Girona's medieval quarter are fluttering with flags in favor of Catalonia's independence.

But while the separatist dream of millions has never felt so close to becoming a reality, independence fervor is now coming up against the cold, hard facts of what breaking free could mean.

For this Spanish region famed for its trading prowess might be shut out of the European Union for years, a huge hurdle to doing business with its most important trading partners.

EU officials say an independent Catalonia would face the same membership conditions of any other candidate nation. 

Catalonia holds elections on Sunday that will be seen as a test of the regional government's plans to hold a referendum on independence, and one of the key issues emerging is the theoretical place of a free Catalonia in Europe. 

A survey published by El Pais newspaper this month showed that while nearly half of Catalans support independence, the number drops to 37 percent if it means being out of the EU. 

PhotoBlog: Catalans eye independence from Spain ahead of elections

Tough membership conditions aren't the only thing possibly standing in the way. The European Union's treaty states that each of the 27 member states can veto a candidate nation's accession, so a vengeful Spain could block Catalonia's entry. 

"Now we want to be a state inside Europe," said Josep Matamala, who helped create a banner combining a pro-EU slogan with the red-and-yellow stripes, blue triangle and white star of the "estelada" flag that symbolizes Catalonia's independence drive. 

'We trust Europe'
Catalonia's regional president Artur Mas, who is leading the independence charge, has voiced optimism — perhaps wishful thinking — that an independent Catalonia would be swiftly embraced into the EU fold.

In a recent speech in Brussels, he declared: "Catalonia has never in its history let Europe down, now we trust Europe will not let us down." 

Some pro-independence voters simply can't fathom being cast out of the EU. "I imagine that if faced with a majority of Catalans who vote yes for independence in a referendum, (the EU) wouldn't be able to turn its back on us," said 35-year-old Girona music teacher Merce Escarra. 

In 2010, Escarra was featured in the local press when she was asked by the owner of the building where she lives to remove the "estelada" flag from her balcony. "I said I had a legitimate right to protest and left it up, and it has been there ever since," she said. 

Two years later it is difficult to find a building in Girona that isn't bedecked with the red-and-yellow Catalan flag or the pro-independence "estelada." 

"Now there has been a boom in the pro-independence movement," Escarra said.

Money, neglect and language
Her reasons for wanting independence are representative of millions of Catalans: The region pays more than it receives back in taxes; its infrastructure has been neglected by the central government; and independence would ensure the survival of the Catalan language. 

While most of Catalonia's business community is taking a wait-and-see attitude, Jose Manuel Lara, the president of media giant Planeta, said he would move his company from Barcelona to Spain if Catalonia went independent, in order to remain based in the EU. 

Ramon Tremosa, a European parliament member from Mas' pro-independence party, said that Catalonia's fate would hinge on pressure being applied on Spain by other European powers and the multinational companies established in Catalonia, which would be anxious for a quick return to business as usual. 

"I can't imagine the 4,000 multinationals (in Catalonia) allowing themselves to be expelled from the EU, from the euro and the free movement of goods and capital, it's not realistic," Tremosa told The Associated Press. "Spain would not be able to stop it because it is heading toward a bailout." 

European law experts were uncertain about how quickly an independent Catalonia could join the EU.

Nicolas Zambrana, professor of international law at the University of Navarra, was pessimistic. "Spain would be in a good position to prevent Catalonia from returning to the EU," he said. 

And the idea of a fledgling Catalan state left out in the European cold is giving some independence supporters second thoughts. 

"It worries me," said Monica Casares, a 41-year-old mother of two who lives just north of Barcelona. "Taking into account that we would face a Spanish boycott on Catalan products for sure, and that we would also have to pay more on exports, we would have a big problem." 

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Attila Kisbenedek / AFP - Getty Images, file

Fireworks burst over the Danube River in Budapest on August 20, 2012 during a celebration marking Hungary's national day.

BUDAPEST - Lawmakers in indebted European Union member Hungary are waving the prospect of a passport at well-heeled foreign investors.

Proposed legislation listed on parliament's website would grant permanent residency and ultimately Hungarian citizenship to outsiders who buy at least 250,000 euros ($322,600) worth of special government bonds.

Hungarian passport holders are entitled to live and work throughout the European Union.

The move, backed by the ruling government party, is designed to attract new investors, especially from China.

Hungary has billions of euros worth of foreign currency debt maturing in the next few years and has explored a variety of ways to refinance.

Chinese investors targeted
Its plans include selling euro-denominated bonds to domestic buyers and trying to attract major new investors from Asia. Selling debt in western bond markets would happen only after tricky talks with international lenders wrap up, the government has said.

Budapest has asked for a financing backstop from the EU and the International Monetary Fund, but talks are dragging on and analysts see only a 50 percent chance of a deal.

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The proposed legislation calls for the debt management office to issue special "residency bonds" to foreigners. Holders of at least a quarter of a million euros' worth of the bonds would get preferential immigration treatment.

"The goal of the modification is to create the institution of 'investor residency' in Hungary," the lawmakers who put forth the legislation wrote in their proposal.

"The proposal ties gaining citizenship to buying bonds because it intends to aid state financing this way," they wrote. "Other investments from those applying for such residency could boost the real estate, retail and investment markets."

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One of the authors of the proposal said Chinese investors were specifically targeted.

"The Chinese have articulated repeatedly that we should help their Hungarian investments," ruling party lawmaker Mihaly Babak told the daily Nepszabadsag. "If someone is a Hungarian citizen they have more (investment) opportunities."

"The condition of a preferential process is the purchase of 250,000 euros worth of bonds with a five year maturity ... We can attract capital from the so-called Third World this way and also finance reducing state debt." 

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