Horizontal Price Coordination and Norm Fragmentation in Citizenship-by-Investment: The Court of Justice of the European Union in Commission v. Malta (Case C-181/23, 2025)
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.59261/jlsp.v4i4.264Keywords:
Citizenship-By-Investment, Commodification of Citizenship, CJEU Commission v. Malta, Horizontal Price Coordination, Norm FragmentationAbstract
Background: Citizenship-by-investment programs commodify political membership across fragmented legal regimes, creating tensions between national sovereignty and emerging anti-commodification norms.
Objective: This article examines how the CJEU judgment in Commission v. Malta (Case C-181/23, April 29, 2025) reshaped citizenship-by-investment (CBI) governance without creating a consolidated global regime.
Methods: Qualitative critical desk research was conducted on relevant legal, policy, and multilateral documents from 2014–2026. The materials were examined through thematic coding, critical reading, and descriptive competition-economics tools, with claims triangulated across primary documents.
Results: Four findings emerge. First, the 2024 OECS Memorandum of Agreement shifted Caribbean CBI toward coordinated convergence, narrowing the donation spread from USD 150,000 to USD 50,000 through a common floor, a prohibition on discounts, and cross-member reporting. Second, the CJEU rejected commodification through Article 20 TFEU and Article 4(3) TEU rather than the Nottebohm doctrine, making its reasoning specific to Union law. Third, the United States Gold Card commodifies political membership through permanent residence, while uptake remained far below its target through April 2026. Fourth, these developments exhibit the indicators of norm fragmentation: simultaneity, institutional autonomy, and stable pluralism.
Conclusion: The study operationalizes norm fragmentation and applies competition-economics tools to CBI governance. For Indonesia, it supports stronger due diligence and structural reciprocity.
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