On 29 April 2025, the European Court of Justice ruled that Malta may no longer sell citizenship through its ‘golden passports’ scheme. Konstantinos Papanikolaou explains the phenomenon of citizenship sales and why the ruling was surprising. But will it put an end to the practice?
PhD Candidate, Max Planck Institute for the Study of Societies
Konstantinos is a sociologist and a member of the research group on the Political Economy of European Integration at the Max Planck Institute for the Study of Societies.
In his dissertation project, he studies citizenship by investment programmes, commonly known as golden passports.
Drawing on economic sociology and EU integration approaches, he analyses the moral and conflictual dimensions of selling citizenship in the EU's multi-level system.
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