Spain to reopen Malta embassy

On November 28 the Spanish Cabinet formally endorsed the decision to reopen a Spanish Embassy in Malta. This decision was taken quite a long time ago, but it was only publicised last April during a Foreign Affairs Committee session in the Spanish Senate when the Spanish Secretary of State for European Affairs, Ramón de Miguel y Egea declared:

"Relations with Malta are very limited. Spain had an embassy in Malta for many years, but this was closed down when, with the election of a Labour government, Malta put on hold its EU membership bid and at the same time, closed its (resident) embassy in Madrid. At the time we considered that, since Malta had closed down its embassy in Madrid and at the same time gave up its aspiration of joining the EU, the resources that were being used in Malta should be used in some other country where our presence was missing; and in this case those resources were used to open an embassy in Slovenia, where our diplomatic presence was missing.

"Now, as I have already said, the opening of an embassy in Malta is a political priority, since it is not possible, it is not even thinkable, that Spain can form part of the European Council together with a country with which it doesn't even have a permanent presence in its capital. Therefore, we will open an embassy in Malta, but the economic and investment relationships in Malta are very small, there has not been great interest by Spanish businessmen, the market is very limited and it is also very influenced by Italy, that is geographically and culturally very important and close to Malta. But it is necessary to say that in Malta, with its links with the old Crown of Aragon and with the Crown of Castile, there is an important cultural presence of Spain, and Spain has great opportunities to grow in its cultural co-operation with this small country."

Last April (six years too late), the Spanish Secretary of State declared publicly and openly (some of) the real reasons for having closed down the Spanish Embassy in Malta in July 1998. Finally, we are officially informed that Spain had then decided to close down its embassy in Malta in retaliation to Malta's "downgrading" of the Maltese Embassy by removing its resident ambassador in Madrid and making it dependent on the embassy in Paris. Lest we forget, we had several official denials of this being one of the reasons for closing down way back in 1998.

Just weeks after this decision was taken, in September 1998, there was a reversal of Malta's intentions to join the EU, with the change of government. Although it is never publicly admitted, Spain immediately regretted its hasty decision - taken, I must add for the sake of truth, after instigations for all the wrong reasons - and it has been waiting since for the right occasion to be able to make up, in a diplomatically and politically correct manner, the first (and hopefully the last) error of this kind ever committed in the long and revered history of Spanish diplomacy, namely the closing down of a Spanish Embassy in peaceful times.

Finally, the slow wheels of bureaucracy were publicly set in motion in April, got a push last November 28 with the approval of the Council of Ministers, and we should eventually see the reopening of the Spanish Embassy in Malta - possibly in mid-2004 at the earliest.

For the sake of truth, since it does not emerge clearly from these declarations in the Spanish Senate, I would like to put on record that this political and diplomatic blunder was approved and put into motion by none other than the person who, ironically, was then self-appointed Ambassador to Malta with residence in Rome!

When the Spanish Embassy reopens sometime in 2004, the political and diplomatic error will somehow be rectified; but not the damage it caused on a cultural, social and most of all, on a human level. That lives on forever!

Mr Cauchi was chancellor and head of administration at the Embassy of Spain in Malta (1978-1998)