nam 22 uu 4500 10.59704/452e3eca733be6a5 DE-Verfassungsblog cr||||| 250505s2025||||xx#|||||o|||| ||| 0|eng|| 10.59704/452e3eca733be6a5 doi eng 342 23 Kochenov, Dimitry Vladimirovich Author aut (orcid)0000-0001-9266-1188 EU Citizenship’s New Essentialism - The Solidification of the Illiberal Union Kochenov, Dimitry Vladimirovich Verfassungsblog 2025-05-05 Text txt rdacontent Computermedien c rdamedia Online-Ressource cr rdacarrier The Court of Justice of the European Union ruled that the Maltese citizenship by investment violates EU law. The Court thereby hints – for the first time – that EU citizenship bond is not only legal in nature. Citizenship has suddenly become a legal but also some other connection between a person and the state. In other words, the law is not enough to make one a citizen, as any such citizenship might fall short of ‘solidarity and good faith’ test at the EU level. This newly-invented extra-legal rule put thousands of Europeans in limbo. This blog will locate some key steps marking this development and offer a possible presentation of the recent decades of EU law in three broad steps, to show how we got where we are. CC BY-SA 4.0 Citizenship by Investment Commission v Malta EU citizenship Max Steinbeis Verfassungsblog gGmbH Verfassungsblog 2366-7044 https://verfassungsblog.de/eu-citizenships-new-essentialism/ raw object