lCan French nationality, like that of all the countries of the European Union, become a consumer good that everyone can buy? To this question, the Court of Justice of the European Union may be prepared to answer yes. Because, before the European Commission of an appeal against Malta – which, since 2014, has been selling its nationality and, therefore, with it, European citizenship for just under 1 million euros –, it is invited, on October 4, by its to General Counsel Anthony Collins to allow it.
This does not prejudge the Court’s final decision. But this marks a trend, because European judges usually follow the conclusions of the Advocate General. For Anthony Collins, Malta can sell its nationality because there is nothing that limits Member States in the rules regarding the granting of its nationality. On the contrary, and rightly so, the Commission and the European Parliament view the sale of European citizenship as an illegitimate process.
Because we must be clear: by selling Maltese nationality, the government in Valletta is, in reality, selling access to other member states of the European Union (EU). Does a rich Russian, Chinese or Emirati want to buy Maltese nationality to settle there? It certainly doesn’t settle there. This purchase is a way to access EU citizenship, which all nationals of the Member States have and which grants the right to free movement and free installation throughout the territory of the Union, as well as political rights in elections. local and European.
A sesame at the price of gold
Malta sells this sesame at a high price, monetizing what it does not have, to allow individuals to abuse European citizenship. This disloyalty constitutes the Commission’s main argument before the Court, based on the violation of the principle of loyal cooperation provided for in Article 4 of the Treaty of the European Union.
But there is more. Nationality is a fundamental component of the dignity of every human being. Since the Second World War and the mass deprivation of nationality used by the Nazi state as a prelude to persecution and extermination, Hannah Arendt has clearly demonstrated the extent to which nationality was crucial: it is the legal instrument that allows everyone, through “Belonging” to a State can guarantee legal personality, a condition on which all protection is based.
The justices of the Supreme Court of the United States wrote to this effect, in the Trop case vs. Dulles ruled in 1958 that loss of nationality causing statelessness was a form of penalty. “even more primitive than torture, because it destroys the political existence of the person”. Furthermore, the US Court ruled that nationality was “the right to have rights”that is, the necessary support without which other rights cannot flourish.
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