That all changed in the 1990s after a number of European nations campaigned for duty-free sales within EU states to be scrapped, which they were in 1999.
Malta has recently taken steps to introduce a scheme for the outright sale of Maltese citizenship, "which automatically entails the outright sale of EU citizenship as a whole without any residency requirement", notes the text.
Illegally diverted from five African countries, sometimes with the aid of government officials, $18 million worth of drugs were laundered through a number of routes to Brussels and Paris, then through Antwerp, all headed for ultimate sale in EU member states and Switzerland.
Outright sale of EU citizenship undermines the mutual trust upon which the Union is built, it points out.
Some member states have introduced schemes which "directly or indirectly" result in the "sale" of EU citizenship to third-country nationals, even though every member state is expected to act responsibly in preserving the Union's common values and achievements.
Sales to the EU increased by 14.7%, while exports to Asia grew by 8.7% in 2011.
Sales across the EU's 27 states as a whole rose 0.7% in January.
Sales in the EU so far this year are up 5% year-on-year to about 12.5 million units, but that is still 19% down on the pre-crisis average.
Sales to non-EU countries are growing by around 7% a year, though Italy's exports are still equivalent to just 29.3% of GDP.
For example, the price of Sugar Protocol sales to the EU are US$631/tonne, for special preferential sugar sales to the EU around US$521/tonne, and for US quota sugar sales, around US$466/tonne.
The EU sales ban has been a priority campaign for HSI.
