The Maltese media have frequently cited the Maltese results of MPG’s joint ACIT project to demonstrate the unchecked discretionary powers on citizenship of the island’s home affairs minister. The report, by citizenship expert Daniela DeBono, reveals the problems associated with this discretion in the implementation of the naturalisation procedure for immigrants on the island. Only 2,401 people have acquired citizenship through naturalisation in Malta since 1991. The Home Affairs minister even stated to parliament that not a single refugee or humanitarian migrant has been naturalised. MPG’s comparative indicators and report points to less discretionary procedures in similar countries, such as Greece and Portugal, which reformed and facilitated naturalisation for immigrants and their descendants. Interestingly, a relative majority of surveyed Maltese citizens would support an automatic rights-based citizenship for foreign children raised in the country. Instead the new IIP citizenship scheme augments the discretionary power of the home minister, who can now grant naturalisations for the price of 650,000€ to wealthy foreigners. So far, the EU institutions have responded that they have no competence to interfere with Member States’ policies on the granting of national (and, by extension, EU) citizenship.
