The European Court of Justice's ruling against Malta's citizenship-by-investment scheme is more than a legal setback. It's the culmination of a decade of political decay, institutional failure, and moral surrender.

In yet another disgraceful chapter of national humiliation, the ECJ ruled that Malta's notorious "golden passport" scheme - a programme that openly sold Maltese and, by default, EU citizenship to the global ultra-rich - is in direct violation of EU law. This is not simply a legal defeat; it is a damning moral indictment of a government that has repeatedly placed profit and political convenience above principle, European solidarity, and the dignity of its own people.

Despite years of warnings and outright condemnation, the Maltese government obstinately pushed forward with a scheme that commercialised European identity. The ruling leaves no room for ambiguity: Malta has "failed to fulfil its obligations under the Treaty on European Union".

Schemes such as that of Malta effectively rendered the acquisition of a national passport as a "mere commercial transaction", a practice that goes against the bond of solidarity and good faith, and also against the mutual trust between member states.

The so-called Individual Investor Programme allowed the ultra-wealthy to purchase Maltese citizenship, with which automatically came the full rights of EU membership: freedom of movement, access to European financial systems, and legal protections.

For over a decade, the EU openly spoke against the scheme, giving the Maltese government one chance after another to withdraw it - until it could wait no longer, and took the matter before the courts for them to decide. And they decided against Malta.

The ECJ's decision is more than a rebuke of a single programme. The commodification of EU citizenship strikes at the heart of what the EU is meant to represent: shared values, mutual trust, and a common future. Instead, Malta turned its passport into a luxury item, available only to those who had the money for it. By putting a price on citizenship, the Maltese government dumped its value.

The alarm was sounded as soon as the process was set in motion and continued even when the government persisted with the idea. Yet, in the face of criticism, the government did not reform - it doubled down. Even now, after a decisive ruling, the official response is lacklustre: a vague commitment to amend the law, as though this were a technical misunderstanding rather than a decade-long international embarrassment. And the way the Prime Minister referred to the ruling in his May Day speech does not bode well. It does not appear that he has understood the consequences of the ECJ decision. Or does not want to.

The golden passport scandal does not stand alone. It fits seamlessly into a wider pattern of political decay that has defined Malta's recent history. In 2017, journalist Daphne Caruana Galizia was murdered while she worked to expose all that was wrong. In 2019, then-Prime Minister Joseph Muscat was named man of the year for corruption by a global consortium of investigative journalists. Malta was placed on the Financial Action Task Force's grey list in 2021 due to severe shortcomings in anti-money laundering enforcement. Prior to that, there was the shame brought about by the Panama Papers, with the same Muscat defending his then Health Minister Konrad Mizzi and OPM chief of staff Keith Schembri to the hilt.

Let's not then forget that there could be other showdowns in European courts with the European Commission as the government continues to dismiss recommendations related to hunting and trapping.

Citizenship is not a commodity. It is a covenant between the individual and the state, built on shared responsibility, not transactional convenience. By cheapening this bond, the Labour government not only undermined Malta's own sovereignty, but compromised the trust that holds the EU together. European citizenship is not Malta's to sell - but sell it did.

The government's promise to amend the legislation is not of comfort, even because given the government's track record, there is no trust that Abela and Co. really mean it. Besides, no legal tweak can erase a decade of damage. What's needed is political accountability and public transparency, but in the last 12 years the Labour government has been the example of the opposite of this.

As usual, Labour quarters are blaming the Nationalist Party for "working against Malta". It's the kind of narrative that sits well in the local context, particular among Labour supporters who are fed what they want to be fed via the powerful Labour propaganda machine.

But the fault lies elsewhere.

It lies with those who came up with the scheme and those who continued it in spite of knowing that "granting EU citizenship in return for pre-determined payments or investments without any genuine link to the member state concerned" goes against all that is European, as the Commission repeatedly said.