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

BRUSSELS (AP) — 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.

FILE - In this file photo taken on Oct. 5, 2015 a woman walks by the entrance to the European Court of Justice in Luxembourg. (Geert Vanden Wijngaert, File)

For England, it’s little more than a warm-up match ahead of much sterner examinations to come.

For Zimbabwe, it means everything.

Trent Bridge in Nottingham will host a four-day test match — something of a rarity for the usual five-day format but perhaps a sign of the future — from Thursday when England and Zimbabwe meet for the first time at international level in 18 years, since a Twenty20 World Cup match in Cape Town.

You need to go back four more years — to Chester-le-Street in 2003 when Jimmy Anderson, a 20-year-old with highlights in his hair, was playing in his first series — for the last test match between the teams.

Zimbabwe’s return to English soil continues the African nation's gradual reintegration to test cricket after two decades of political interference, poor governance and sanctions that resulted in the team being exiled from test cricket for around six years.

The Zimbabweans didn’t play a test from 2005-11. From 2022-24, they played just four tests. But between December last year and August this year, they’ll have played in 10 tests, with two-match series against South Africa and New Zealand to come this summer.

Zimbabwe still isn’t part of the World Test Championship but, in the bigger picture, progress is being made. Zimbabwe Cricket will receive a touring fee from the England and Wales Cricket Board for being the first test opponent of the summer, ECB chief executive Richard Gould confirmed last year while speaking about the “huge responsibility” to maintain the strength of bilateral cricket.

Zimbabwe isn't expected to offer much resistance to England, having slumped to a 138-run defeat to a Professional County Club Select XI in Leicester last week. Before that, however, it did earn a first test victory since 2021 — winning in Bangladesh on the way to sharing the series 1-1.

While Zimbabwe's view is very much about the present, England's sights will be on the future.

Ahead this summer is a five-test series against India and then an Ashes tour Down Under. For England, it doesn't get much bigger than that so the match against Zimbabwe will be important preparation, especially for a bowling department at the start of a new era following the test retirements of Stuart Broad (in 2023) and Anderson (last year).

For the Zimbabwe test, England will give a debut to Sam Cook, fellow pacer Josh Tongue is returning to the team after a two-year absence, and Gus Atkinson is about to start his second summer of test cricket. There are as many question marks about the only specialist spinner in the team, Shoaib Bashir, and the fitness of allrounder Ben Stokes, returning after a hamstring tear to regain the captaincy.

“I've got to be mindful of where I'm at and building myself back up to proper match workload for later on in the summer,” Stokes said Wednesday.

Then there's the batting lineup where opener Zak Crawley and No. 3 Ollie Pope have been retained despite continued speculation about their worthiness in the team. There's the welcome sight of a return for wicketkeeper Jamie Smith after missing the tour of New Zealand in November and December while on paternity leave.

England is No. 2 in the test rankings but coach Brendon McCullum said “there’s a lot of meat on the bone for us” in the next stage of the so-called “ Bazball ” era.

“When we took on a project like this, it was not about necessarily settling on ‘good,'" McCullum said. "I think now’s the time, working from a strong base, to be able to shoot for the stars and say, ‘Where can we take this team? What can we achieve?’”

The scheduling of a four-day test might be a blow to test purists but England home matches have rarely reached Day 5 under the leadership of McCullum and Stokes since 2022.

As for the Zimbabweans, they'll take whatever top-flight games they can on the long road back to cricket relevancy.

AP cricket: https://apnews.com/hub/cricket

FILE - England's Steve Harmison, center, celebrates his dismissal of Zimbabwe's Douglas Hondo, with teammates Robert Key, left, and Michael Vaughan, to give England a victory of an innings and 69 runs, in the second cricket Test between England and Zimbabwe at Chester-le-Street, England, Saturday, June 7, 2003.(AP Photo/Max Nash, File)