Prime Minister Lawrence Gonzi will go to Brussels next month to discuss Malta's eligibility for funds under the next EU budget.

He will meet the President of the European Commission, José Manuel Durao Barroso, and the commissioner responsible for regional policy, Danuta Hubner, a spokesman for the Prime Minister said.

The visit comes at a time when Malta risks losing, for statistical reasons, its Objective 1 status - which entitles it to the most generous EU funds - within the framework of the 2007-2013 EU budget.

The Prime Minister's spokesman told The Times: "The position of the Maltese government is that it is unacceptable for Malta not to be an Objective 1 country during the forthcoming financial programming period.

"Apart from this issue having already been discussed over the past 12 months, the Prime Minister has already raised his concerns with the presidency of the Council during a meeting held on December 10 with Luxembourg's Prime Minister Jean Claude Junker and earlier on with Commission President Barroso."

The spokesman said the meeting with Mr Barroso and with the EU commissioner, separately, will be held on February 16.

Data released by the European Commission last Tuesday indicated that Malta could lose its Objective 1 status for the purposes of structural and cohesion funds.

To be eligible for such funds, member states must have a GDP of 75 per cent or less of the EU's GDP average. The statistics showed that Malta's GDP between 2000 and 2002 was 75.9 per cent of the EU average.

The Maltese government is insisting that the EU takes Malta's 2003 data into consideration as GDP results published by Eurostat at the end of last year, taking into account data covering 2003, showed that Malta was eligible to retain its Objective 1 status.

In fact, those statistics, calculating the average GDP between 2001 and 2003, showed that Malta had an index of 75 per cent of GDP per capita in purchasing power standard (PPS) when compared to the average of the 25 EU member states. This would mean Malta just making it to Objective 1 status.

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