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So called the Malta’s gold passport scheme that allows people to become citizens through financial investment, contrary to European legislation, the EU’s Supreme Court has taken.
In 2022, the EU commission sent Malta to the court in this scheme, which provides foreigners of the Maltese passport and thus the right to live and work in any EU country in return for at least 600,000 euros (509 619 pounds), buying or renting property of a certain value and sacrificing 10,000 euros per charity.
The EU court states that this scheme “means the acquisition of nationality with a simple commercial transaction.”
The Malta government has not yet responded to the resolution that former Prime Minister Joseph Muscat called “political”.
He said he believed that the scheme could continue with “some changes”.
The country risks a healthier fine if it does not comply with the court.
The EU court said that “the acquisition of the Union’s citizenship cannot be the result of a commercial transaction.”
Malta has repeatedly insisted that this is correct in the interpretation of the EU contracts, Reuters reports.
In 2022, she suspended this scheme for Russian and Belarusian citizens after Russia’s invasion of Europe on Kremlin.
The ruling on Tuesday opposed the report last October from the court lawyer at the time Anthony Collins.
He said that the commission could not prove that the EU’s law requires a “true connection” between a person and a country to give legal citizenship, adding that for each state -member to decide who “one of their citizens is and, as a consequence, is an EU citizen.”
Although each EU -member state determines how they provide nationality, the court stated that the Malta’s scheme “threatens mutual trust” between the member states.
In the EU there is Previously called on the countries to finish the practiceNoting that investors’ citizenship schemes conducted “inherent” safety issues, as well as the risks of money laundering, tax evasion and corruption.
