EU's top court orders end to Malta's 'golden passport' program

BRUSSELS — The European Court of Justice on Tuesday ordered Malta to close its ''golden passport'' program, ruling that citizenship in EU countries cannot be sold.

Programs that allow wealthy people to buy citizenship were once widespread in Europe, but they've been rolled back in recent years amid concerns that they facilitate transnational crime and sanctions evasion.

The court said Malta's scheme broke EU law even after the Mediterranean island country made reforms.

The program ''amounts to the commercialization of the grant of the nationality of a member state and by extension that of union citizenship,'' a judge at the court in Luxembourg said. ''The acquisition of Union citizenship cannot result from a commercial transaction.''

Malta ''failed to fulfill its obligations'' to the European Union, the judge said.

''Such a practice does not make it possible to establish the necessary bond of solidarity and good faith between a Member State and its citizens, or to ensure mutual trust between the Member States and thus constitutes a breach of the principle of sincere cooperation,'' the court wrote.

The government of Malta said in a statement that it would respect the court's decision while examining the ruling's ''legal implications." It defended the scheme, saying it has brought 1.4 billion euros ($1.6 billion) to the island nation since 2015.

The ruling of the EU's top court was welcomed by transparency advocates but criticized by Maltese politicians.

Joseph Muscat, the former Prime Minister who ushered in the program, posted on Facebook that the ruling was ''politically motivated'' and that Malta's scheme should be reformed rather than scrapped.

Before the ruling, Prime Minister Robert Abela told local newspaper the Times of Malta that the scheme was safe and beneficial.

But the scheme did not benefit Malta, said Maltese journalist Matthew Caruana Galizia who welcomed the ruling as ''a win for the people of Malta and for all EU residents who have been unfairly exposed to the whims of money launderers and corrupt criminals buying their way into the EU.''

Galizia, son of Daphne Caruana Galizia, a Maltese journalist focused on corruption who was killed by a bomb in 2017, called for the government of Malta to scrap the ''golden passport'' program targeted in the ruling and to curtail its separate ''golden visa'' program that grants Maltese residency to wealthy foreigners.

Such programs were widely embraced across Europe and the United Kingdom, especially in the wake of the 2009 financial crisis.

But in the following decade, most EU states scrapped their programs over their links to housing crises in Europe; fears of the programs' potential for white collar crime, corruption and money laundering; and security concerns following the 2018 Salisbury poisoning in the U.K.

The European Commission launched infringement procedures against Malta and Cyprus in 2020 about their golden passport programs. After Cyprus in 2021 and Bulgaria in 2022 ended their programs, Malta was one of the last holdouts.

Russia's invasion of Ukraine shone an increasingly harsh spotlight on the policies, which some say allow Russians linked to the conflict to skirt sanctions.

The European Commission warned that some Russian or Belarusian citizens who are among the 877 individuals targeted by asset freezes and travel bans imposed since 2014, or who support the Russian invasion of its neighbor, might have acquired EU citizenship or had access to the Schengen area via these schemes.

A 2023 report by corruption watchdog Transparency International found Russians under sanctions by Ukraine or linked otherwise to the war effort had opened companies in France using recently acquired passports from Malta.

''Countless cases have shown how these schemes have granted safe haven in the EU to corrupt actors from around the world and other suspicious individuals,'' said Transparency's chief Maíra Martini. Speaking at a regular news conference in Brussels, European Commission spokesperson Markus Lammert said the ruling extends beyond Malta to halt any of the EU's 27 member states from running such schemes.

''Malta has breached EU law — it's now for Malta to implement the court's judgment," he said.

He did not say whether such passports already issued should be revoked, saying only that it would study the verdict to understand its implications.

The court ruling also comes shortly after U.S. President Donald Trump said he plans to start a ''gold card'' visa program that includes a potential pathway to U.S. citizenship for $5 million.