38 R. Bauböck This makes it quite natural to consider the external value of citizenship from a global perspective, as Spiro, Armstrong and Barbulescu do in different ways. Spiro regards the sale of citizenship as yet another symptom of its inevitable decline due to globalisation, alongside the increasing toleration of dual citizenship, as he has argued previously. While the instrumental value of citizenship of an EU member state for transnationally mobile populations has increased, citizenship as a ‘sacred bond’ between an individual and a state has unravelled. Armstrong and Barbulescu look instead at citizenship through a lens of global (in)justice and conclude that the sale of EU passports is merely one instance – and not the most significant one – of how citizenship policies ‘both feed off, and make it harder to tackle, underlying global inequalities.’ This echoes Shachar’s initial comment that we should be equally critical of the comparatively rare practice of putting up citizenship for sale and of ‘granting citizenship according to nothing but the fortuitous and arbitrary circumstances of station of birth’. I suggest that it is useful to consider the external and internal perspectives separately. From a global perspective, birthright citizenship may indeed look suspiciously arbitrary, although I would not regard it as a cause of global injustice. To see why, consider the EU as a regional model for a potentially more just global regime. In the EU, free movement and access to opportunities elsewhere is linked to citizenship in a member state, which is again based on birthright in each of these states. So it seems misconceived to point to birthright citizenship as the culprit that causes global social inequalities instead of blaming unequal resources, global economic governance and immigration control. Once we walk through the city gates and listen to the voice of Janus from the other side, our critique of citizenship for sale will change quite radically. Barbulescu asks rhetorically: ‘If all countries were equal in living conditions would the scheme be objectionable?’ From inside a democratic community, the answer to this question must be an emphatic yes! To understand why, let us focus for a moment on the core political right of citizenship, the franchise in democratic elections. Isn’t it objectionable to sell the right to vote to outsiders? Suppose that, in reaction to critiques by the other EU states, Malta decides to sell the franchise in its national elections rather than its passports. The price it could achieve would be of course much lower, but would it be all right to do so? Let me hasten to say that Malta and Cyprus are among the very few European states that currently do not allow their citizens residing abroad to cast their vote in national elections. So while ­investors can get citizenship without taking up residence, they will need to