07 May 2025
It’s solidarity, stupid!
Few cases have triggered as stark reactions as Commission v Malta. In the ruling’s aftermath, many legal scholars and practitioners were quick to discard the decision. While the ruling is bold, innovative, and goes far beyond established precedent, the Court’s reasoning remains brief, ambiguous, in some parts even obscure and sibylline. Yet, most of the Court’s “great” judgments have left room for interpretation. No doubt, Commission v Malta will be subject to many, very different, affirmative or critical interpretations. In the following, I will provide one – of several possible! – readings, which seeks to square the ruling with constitutional reasoning. Continue reading >>
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07 May 2025
The Silent Engine of European Citizenship
In its ruling on 29 April 2025 in Case C-181/23 Commission v Malta, the Grand Chamber held that Malta’s investor citizenship scheme, which grants Maltese nationality in exchange for predetermined payments or investments, was contrary to EU law. Although the judgment has been criticised (perhaps not without reason) for its lack of doctrinal foundation, it does demonstrate that the EU principle of mutual trust has constitutional character and is normatively capable of challenging national administrative mechanisms, such as the Maltese naturalisation scheme, that are incompatible with the values in Art. 2 TEU. Continue reading >>
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06 May 2025
What is Citizenship For?
Last week, the CJEU declared Malta’s citizenship for investment scheme incompatible with EU law. Setting aside the evidently highly questionable quality and defensibility of the Court’s legal reasoning, the decision clearly casts Union citizenship as a status constituted by meanings and norms specific to the European Union as a normative legal project. What are we to make of this conception of citizenship, and its use by the Court to strike down citizenship for investment schemes? Continue reading >>
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05 May 2025
Why bother with legal reasoning?
Hindsight can make one look naive. Following the Opinion of Advocate General Collins in Commission v Malta, I argued that ‘the rhetorical battle over citizenship by investment has been won by the EU institutions’ but that ‘emotions and rhetoric alone should not decide legal battles’. Of course, I should have known better: the central dogma on which a large lineage of EU citizenship cases rests – that EU citizenship is destined to be the fundamental status of nationals – is a rhetorical device without basis in EU law. And once again, in the Commission v Malta ruling of 29 April 2025, on whether Malta was in breach of its obligations under EU law by maintaining and promoting a citizenship by investment (CBI) scheme, the Court prioritised rhetoric and political expediency over solid legal argumentation. Continue reading >>30 April 2025
The EU Free Market Does Not Extend to Citizenship
In the landmark Commission v Malta judgment of 29 April 2025, the European Union Court of Justice outlawed the “commercialisation” of EU citizenship, closing a door for corrupt actors. The Grand Chamber judgment not only bars the Maltese practice at issue, but also casts doubt on the legality of citizenship grants under that and similar schemes, while raising legal arguments for would-be citizens to challenge discriminatory laws. Continue reading >>09 October 2024
Dismissing the Genuine Link by Disregarding Constitutional Principles
The struggle over the Maltese investment citizenship scheme is probably one of the fiercest debates of EU constitutional law. The conflict revolves around the question of whether EU law contains requirements for the acquisition of Union citizenship and whether these requirements consist in a “genuine link” between the respective state and individual. The recent Opinion by AG Collins provides us with an extremely narrow and astonishingly one-sided view. In particular, he seeks to make us believe that there are no sound ways to anchor a genuine link requirement in EU law. Martijn van den Brink finds it “hard to disagree with the Advocate General”. Respectfully, I disagree. Continue reading >>09 October 2024
Concise, Clear, and Convincing
While the rhetorical battle over citizenship by investment has been won by the EU institutions, its legal success is still up for debate. Last week Advocate General Collins delivered his much-anticipated Opinion in Commission v Malta, proposing that the Court dismisses the Commission’s challenge in a concise, clear, and, as I will explain, convincing legal opinion. Continue reading >>
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