Golden passport schemes violate the European Union law as Bloc considers them illegal

The “Golden Passport” schemes for foreign investors of deep pocket violates the law of the European Union, the highest court of the bloc ruled on Tuesday after a legal challenge against Malta by Brussels.

“The acquisition of union citizenship cannot be derived from a commercial transaction,” the EU Court of Justice said, feeling that Malta had violated the EU law.

Brussels had brought Malta to the High Court in 2022 during the program, which allows non -European to effectively buy citizen citizenship and, therefore, the EU through defined payments or investments.

Tuesday’s decision is binding and Malta must fulfill or risk heavy fines.

“A Member State cannot grant their nationality, and in fact, European citizenship, in exchange for predetermined payments or investments, as this essentially means that the acquisition of nationality is a simple commercial transaction,” the court said.

Although the court emphasized that each Member State has the right to decide nationality, this was a freedom that must “be fulfilled by the EU law”.

The Maltese scheme “violates the principle of sincere cooperation and jeopardizes mutual confidence between Member States on the granting of their nationality,” said the court.

The rich and the Chinese Russians had used the regime to obtain the citizens of the EU of Malta.

There had been similar schemes in Cyprus and Bulgaria, but these countries dropped them.

Malta excluded Russian and Belarusian applications for “golden passports” after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in 2022, when Europe broke up with people linked to Kremlin.

This story originally presented to Fortune.com

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