Two basic principles normally govern the way nationality and citizenship are conferred. Under one principle, citizenship is determined by the state in whose territory the birth took place. While under the second, nationality is acquired by descent from a parent who was a national. This has been the Maltese convention and it has hitherto been applied fairly restrictively.
Recent amendments to Malta's Citizenship Act have come into effect allowing second and subsequent generations of Maltese who were born abroad to apply for citizenship. These amendments enable children whose father or mother was of Maltese descent to acquire citizenship.
In the past this privilege has been limited to those Maltese born abroad to at least one parent born in Malta. Now second or subsequent generations will be entitled to apply for citizenship so long as one of their parents has gained Maltese citizenship. Citizenship is also being extended to people born abroad before Malta's independence to a Maltese mother born in Malta and a non-Maltese father. Thus, what second and subsequent generation migrants now need to show to qualify for a passport is Maltese descent.
Those of Maltese descent but born abroad in Australia, Canada, the United Kingdom, the United States and elsewhere will welcome the move. It will satisfy in a most tangible way their visceral wish to retain their Maltese identity and to demonstrate it by holding a Maltese passport. To this degree, therefore, the government has satisfied a deep social and humanitarian need of those who left these shores decades ago and whose children and grandchildren still wish to be identified as Maltese.
Once they gain Maltese citizenship, individuals may choose to continue to live in another country. This new law should prove attractive to those second and third generation migrants of Maltese descent born in non-EU countries, such as Australia, Canada and the US who, on obtaining a Maltese passport, will be able to travel freely, study, live or work in any European Union country.
It is not immediately clear to what extent Malta will benefit from this change in the law. With hundreds of thousands of individuals of Maltese descent in all these countries, the potential for a steady growth in the numbers holding Maltese citizenship is not inconsiderable. Doubling our citizenship numbers would not increase our diplomatic clout though it might conceivably give us some advantage in the arcane budgetary calculations of the EU.
Malta may gain in another respect. Ireland, Poland, Italy and tiger economies like India and China have seen the managerial involvement and considerable direct financial and intellectual investment of earlier migrants to the United States now returning to give something back to their country of origin - to the latter's great benefit. In Malta's case we might see these new citizens, now equipped with a Maltese and EU passport, being more inclined to think about investing their know-how and their money in the Maltese economy.
For the same reason, Malta stands to profit from the possibility of increased opportunities for cross-fertilisation in arenas such as culture and sport.
EU membership has changed the rules of the nationality game. Citizens of the European Union can now live anywhere in any of the 27 countries including, shortly, in Malta. In a globalised world, and with national barriers in Europe increasingly being dismantled, a more liberal interpretation of Maltese citizenship and nationality makes sense.