Citizenship for Sale in Crisis EU

This paper sets out in a first step to  contextualise the proliferation of recent immigrant investor schemes in the EU, suggesting that they are emblematic of processes of the ‘commercialisation of citizenship’ which have intensified in the context of the political, economic and social ‘crises’ in the EU and a broader context of competitive austerity..  Second it analyses the reasons for their controversial nature in the EU, with a particular focus on the Maltese 'citizenship for sale' scheme which provoked a reaction from EU institutions.    Fourth, it considers the particular attempt by the European Commission to ‘de-commodify’ citizenship in the Maltese case, reflecting on its assertion of the need to establish a ‘genuine link’ between host state and investor citizen.  In a fifth and final step, it argues that these schemes and the reactions to them point to an ethical ambiguity at the heart of contemporary citizenship that is reflected in a contemporary multi-level citizenship in Europe.  It concludes by arguing that if the EU, broadly conceived, is genuine in its assertion that ‘citizenship must not be for sale!’ then it needs to do more than challenge individual investor programmes and interrogate its own culpability in the commercialisation of citizenship in crisis EU.