Dear friends, Dear interested parties,
Europe is not for sale! In a ground-breaking judgement, the European Court of Justice has just banned Malta from continuing to sell so-called ‘golden passports’. This is a milestone against financial crime – and strengthens Europe at the same time. The legal basis of the judgement is quite something.
The background: Malta and Cyprus have been selling thousands of citizenships for large sums of money for years, generating hundreds of millions in revenue. As a result, countless dubious characters gained national and thus European citizenship rights. Cyprus stopped this dirty business under pressure from the EU Commission. Malta continued undeterred.
Following strong pressure from the media and the European Parliament, the EU Commission took action against this with infringement proceedings. The EU Commission has now been proved right before the ECJ. The ECJ ruled that although citizenship is a national competence, Malta must observe basic principles of European law. National citizenship entails many European rights: freedom of movement, political rights and consular protection. These rights depend on trust between member states. EU citizenship is therefore more than just a legal status – it is an expression of solidarity and mutual trust between Member States.
A ‘commercialisation’ of citizens‘ rights by individual member states therefore violates in particular the obligation of “sincere and loyal cooperation” of the member states – an important principle of the European Union. For the first time, the EU Commission has now initiated infringement proceedings against a member state for violating this principle as the main legal basis. And the ECJ has now finally confirmed this!
The European Court of Justice has thus written European legal history. This is because the national competences of the member states are no longer a licence to rip off their neighbours. The principle of sincere cooperation takes precedence over national competences in individual cases. The ECJ has thus also set a clear stop sign for right-wing populists throughout Europe: no country may enrich itself at the expense of another. Nationalism also has limits beyond EU competences. This could also help against particularly blatant forms of tax dumping in Europe.
Malta must now completely stop selling golden passports. Furthermore, Malta and other member states should rethink all forms of misuse of their respective sovereignty at the detriment of their European neighbours. And the EU Commission should also take action against golden visas, which are also being sold by the thousands in Europe. After all, they often lead to citizenship and EU citizenship rights. Lastly, a serious review is needed with regard to the acceptance of passports in the EU which were sold by third countries and could even lead to visa free travel into the EU.
I fought against golden passports and visas for years in the European Parliament. Now I am delighted with this success. In short, as a European, I am in a great political mood today. A big thank you to the EU Commission for its action!
With European greetings
Sven Giegold
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P.S.: I recently joined the LinkedIn platform. I look forward to networking with you there. Here: https://www.linkedin.com/in/sven-giegold/
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You can find the judgement of the ECJ here:
https://curia.europa.eu/jcms/upload/docs/application/pdf/2025-04/cp250052en.pdf
You can find out more about the golden passport and visa deals from my work as an MEP here: