70 A. Shachar led to the revocation of visa waiver policies in third countries. The programme set up by Grenada, for instance, was suspended after Canada imposed visa requirements on the island’s passport holders. It is unclear whether similar responses by third countries are to be expected here, but this is a risk factor that must be acknowledged if European member states proceed with their plans to grant immediate citizenship based on payment alone and without requiring grantees to ever live in, or even visit, the passport-­issuing country. The discomfort we may feel toward the mercenary-like quality of cash-­ for-­passport programmes brings additional, hard questions to the forefront: is citizenship merely about rights, or also responsibilities? Could (and should) proportionality apply not only to the loss of citizenship but also to its acquisition? And what justification, if any, is owed (and to whom) if a member state’s action ‘cheapens’ the fundamental status of Union citizenship, in this case by commodifying it? We are dealing here with some of the most foundational aspects of our collective and public life. The decision to place ‘citizenship for sale’ on the agenda for debate in the European Parliament and possibly the Commission as well is meaningful, both expressively and practically. It will offer a unique opportunity for all involved stakeholders to think critically about the law as we know it, while imagining the law as it could be. Open Access This chapter is licensed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons license and indicate if changes were made. The images or other third party material in this chapter are included in the chapter’s Creative Commons license, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the chapter’s Creative Commons license and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder.

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