54 D. Kochenov they are, since it is unlikely that the number of Maltese investor-citizens will represent a problem in the EU context: the scale of sales will remain small – even compared with the extension of EU citizenship by other states where a connection with the state itself is unnecessary, such as turning Argentinians into Italians based on the romantic ideas of inter-generational continuity or distributing Hungarian passports in the Serbian province Voivodina. Importantly, there is nothing wrong at all with these practices which are democratic and legal and supply thus a strong argument in support of the Maltese law. Indeed, investing into your nationality is at least as random (read ‘sound’) as investing in a lawyer to discover your Italian heritage for the sake of claiming an Italian passport. V. EU citizenship provides the most vivid reminder of the radical shift in the meaning of citizenship that made it a more ethically acceptable institution. Non-discrimination on the basis of nationality – the very core of EU law – provides the litmus test for what national citizenship is really about in the EU today. France is prohibited from ‘loving’ its own nationals more than, say, resident Estonians or Maltese. The stigmatising function of citizenship is thus deactivated: humiliation of a randomly proclaimed other is not any more an option, at least legally speaking, among EU Member States. Full belonging to a society is thus not subjected any more to an arbitrary approval, putting all the bizarre language, culture and other tests that states subject newcomers to in a very interesting perspective: the very existence of the EU disproves their validity and relevance. They consist in nothing else but purification through humiliation: the ‘others” language and culture is presumed as not good enough and social learning is dismissed, forcing people to waste their time by subjecting them to profoundly disturbing rituals3. The very success of EU citizenship is the strongest argument against these practices, which Shachar wants to see applied to all without questioning their effectiveness and common sense. Indeed, if a Romanian is good enough to be embraced by British society as equal, subjecting a Moldovan to any kind of tests is utterly illogical: the arguments of the protection of culture, language, etc. are simply devoid of relevance when more than half a billion EU citizens a exempted from them. 3 Kochenov, D. (2011), ‘Mevrouw de Jong Gaat Eten: EU Citizenship and the Culture of Prejudice’, Robert Schuman Centre for Advanced Studies EUDO Citizenship Observatory Working Paper 2011/06, Florence: European University Institute, available at http://cadmus.eui.eu/bitstream/handle/1814/15774/RSCAS_2011_06.corr.pdf?sequence=3.