EU threatens Malta with legal actions over golden passports

[joluoto]

EU threatens legal action over Malta's 'golden passport' scheme​

Golden Passport schemes need to end, and while some countries are now ending them (such as Cyprus and Bulgaria), Malta still has one going. Citizenship in a EU country is not something you can buy. How many Russian oligarchs, Saudi sheikhs or Chinese investors have bought Maltese citizenship?

 

[Captain Adverse]

EU threatens legal action over Malta's 'golden passport' scheme
Golden Passport schemes need to end, and while some countries are now ending them (such as Cyprus and Bulgaria), Malta still has one going. Citizenship in a EU country is not something you can buy. How many Russian oligarchs, Saudi sheikhs or Chinese investors have bought Maltese citizenship?

I am referring to the bolded when I ask the following question:

Why is Citizenship in a member state not something you can buy? If not, why not?

Doesn't each nation have control over whom and how one may become a citizen of that nation, even as a member of the EU? Or is there some EU "commission" which makes those rules and the treaty requires adherence?

What about all those "war refugees" that got absorbed back after Iraq wars?

 

[joluoto]

I am referring to the bolded when I ask the following question:

Why is Citizenship in a member state not something you can buy? If not, why not?

Doesn't each nation have control over whom and how one may become a citizen of that nation, even as a member of the EU? Or is there some EU "commission" which makes those rules and the treaty requires adherence?

What about all those "war refugees" that got absorbed back after Iraq wars?

The reason EU has allowed it to go on for years is because the question of citizenship is up to the individual member states. However the problem here it that citizenship in a EU member state means being a Eu citizen with full access to every member state. The Commission considers this a breach of Article 4 of the Treaty of the European Union, the article that states the member states will assist each other through "sincere cooperation", since Malta's policy here has jeopardized this by undermining security policies of other member states. The Comission considers it an infringement of Article 20 of the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union, and this is something you don't see every day. That article says every citizen of a EU member state is a citizen of the EU, and has all the rights that entails throughout the Union, and beyond.