Malta’s golden passport scheme can stay, EU court signals

Malta’s controversial golden passport scheme, allowing foreigners to purchase EU citizenship in exchange for investing upwards of €690,000, could be offered a legal reprieve following an opinion produced for the EU’s top court on Friday (4 October).  

Granting citizenship is a power EU member states kept for themselves, said the non-binding report by Advocate General Anthony Collins, brushing aside European Commission concerns of undermining the EU’s integrity.  

“Member States have decided that it is for each of them alone to determine who is entitled to be one of their nationals and, as a consequence, who is an EU citizen,” said a statement from the Court of Justice.  

“There is no logical basis for the contention that because Member States are obliged to recognise nationality granted by other Member States, their nationality laws must contain any particular rule,” the statement added. 

Judges at the Court of Justice will decide on the case in the near future; they aren’t obliged to follow Advocate General opinions, though in the majority of cases they do. 

The Commission took the legal action years ago, arguing that the golden passport scheme breached Malta’s duty to cooperate sincerely. In principle, people can gain citizenship of Malta, and hence the right to work across the EU, even if they didn’t have family ties or a home there.

Malta is the last remaining golden passport scheme within the bloc, after Cyprus scrapped its procedure in 2020, and Bulgaria in 2022. Other countries offer “golden visas”, a narrower system that offers residence permits to those willing to pay, although those are also under the spotlight.  

Portugal slimmed down its golden visa scheme last year, removing a real estate investment condition in a bid to cut property speculation. The Netherlands followed suit, ending its golden visa scheme in January 2024, and Spain has also promised to abolish golden visas for those who invest in real estate. 

The schemes have raised significant security and money-laundering concerns – not least since the invasion of Ukraine in 2020, as acquiring an EU passport or residence card may let wealthy Russians evade sanctions.  

In 2022, MEPs called for tighter rules on golden visas and a ban on citizenship by investment, saying it was “objectionable from an ethical, legal and economic point of view”.