EU Citizenship’s New Essentialism

The Court of Justice of the European Union ruled that the Maltese citizenship by investment violates EU law: ‘A programme of that sort amounts to the commercialization of the granting of the status of national of a Member State and, by extension, Union citizenship, which is incompatible with the conception of that fundamental status that stems from the Treaties’ (para. 100). It reached this conclusion with reference to the systemic importance of EU citizenship, amounting to a raison d’être of the Union (para. 91) and its direct implications for the solidarity among the Member States (para. 101). No legal rule can justify the lack of solidari…