1. It looks like Malta's gearing up for a fight over its so-called "Citizenship by Investment" scheme. A thread with a couple of basic thoughts on why Malta's arguments mightn't be as persuasive as it hopes: https://timesofmalta.com/articles/view/malta-prepared-to-fight-for-passport-scheme-in-top-eu-court.833002

2. The notion of citizenship as a tradeable commodity is problematic as a matter of EU law, but not only for the reasons cited by the Commission. It's also the overarching design of the internal market which calls into question the claim that citizenship could be tradeable.

3. The Treaty regulates tradeable factors of production and human inputs differently, and it does so for good reason. Those differences are most clearly reflected in the distinctions between legal persons (highly regulated) and natural persons (unregulated).

4. Reservation of nationality law to the MSs' laws & MSs' commitment to mutual recognition of nationality decisions presuppose that personhood is naturally occurring. This is the basis for the contractual arrangement (i.e. the Treaty) upon which free movement of persons operates.

5. This contractual understanding is articulated through the duty of sincere cooperation. As @MaduroPoiares noted in Rottman, EU law could constrain MSs’ naturalisation decisions in some circumstances (eg mass naturalisation, which he argues would be self-evidently questionable).

6. @MaduroPoiares provides no further elaboration for this view, but it appears that the distinction between that which is lawful and that which is not must be drawn at the point when Member States behave in a manner which was not contemplated in their agreement.

7. Malta (and its advisors) doesn't help its case when it argues that its CBI scheme’s “due diligence is the toughest in the industry”. Presumably, this is intended to pre-empt suggestions that commodification of citizenship represents a threat to the integrity of the EU order.

8. If references to the robustness of Malta's due diligence aren't to be treated as mere rhetorical flourishes, it appears that Malta implicitly concedes that due diligence is a relevant factor in the legitimacy of CBI. That's a problem for Malta: https://twitter.com/JustinBBarthet/status/1270625323567271937?s=20

9. In other words, Malta appears to accept that, if its due diligence isn't up to scratch, this could violate the essential basis upon which other MSs agreed to recognise its decisions. It's clear that Malta's due diligence is poor *by design*. That seems to be an EU law problem.