Malta is a small island nation situated between Sicily and North Africa that's home to just over 550,000 people. Though it isn't the most well-known of Europe's Mediterranean destinations, it offers something particularly attractive to the world's ultra-rich: one of the world's most popular golden passport programs that offers a backdoor path to citizenship in the European Union without the fuss of a standard immigration process.
But depending on the outcome of a years-long legal challenge brought by the European Commission, those citizenship schemes for wealthy investors could be banned in Malta and across the EU—or become far more common.
