EU's top court rules against Malta's 'golden passport' program

The European Court of Justice ordered Malta to close its “golden passport” program, the one of the last of its kind in Europe that allows wealthy people to buy EU citizenship, even after the small island country suspended the program for citizens of Russia and Belarus. The court ruled on Tuesday in Luxembourg that Malta “failed to fulfill its obligations” to the EU and that the program “amounts to the commercialization of the grant of the nationality of a member state and by extension that of union citizenship.”