British High Commission may suffer 'shrinkage'

British High Commissioner Nick Archer has told the House Foreign Affairs Committee that the High Commission in Malta is expected to suffer some "shrinkage" in the near future but this will be focused largely on support staff and is unlikely to be noticed.

Mr Archer gave a presentation entitled "Cost effective diplomacy" to the members of the committee on Wednesday and then replied to questions which covered a wider spectrum.

He said the diplomatic service was going through a huge programme of bureaucratic change which would have profound consequences on British diplomatic missions throughout the world.

Economic pressures meant an assessment was being made of what the missions were expected to achieve on the basis of Britain's strategic priorities.

Improvement in communications technology and the fact that most European ministers knew each other practically on a personal basis meant that the strongest pressure was to scale down the missions in Europe, deploying to other areas.

The British priorities included making the world a safer place, tackling climate change, addressing international crime, preventing conflict, working towards a peaceful and more prosperous European Union, promoting British business, security, sustainable development, managing migration and supporting UK citizens and dependencies.

London viewed the Maltese mission as important for supporting the British resident community and tourists, tackling migration, EU issues and climate change.

Mr Archer said Britain had helped Malta in the EU accession process and was continuing to do so now, with the two countries having worked in areas such as capacity building in the pre-accession period and now focusing on areas such as the future of Europe.

Climate change, he said, was a priority for British Foreign Secretary Margaret Becket and it was the role of British diplomatic missions to convince not only governments but the ordinary people to do something now to save the world for the future.

Replying to questions by committee president Jason Azzopardi (PN) and Labour MP Jose Herrera on migration, Mr Archer said that Britain could not take migrants from Malta because of its own huge migration problems and related political sensitivity. However Britain was very sympathetic to Malta's problem, which, in a way, was also its own because many migrants who arrived in Malta eventually crossed Italy and France to the UK. It was feared that taking migrants from Malta could lead migrants to believe that Malta could be their ticket to Northern Europe, he said.

Britain, he said, was not criticising and would not criticise Maltese migration policies. Nor was there the expectation that Malta should assume responsibilities which Libya should be discharging.

What Britain was working with Malta on was to close this route altogether, something which would benefit both countries. Britain was also working with Malta on the repatriation of migrants and it had also offered places for courses on dealing with migrants.

Accepting migrants from Malta would also be seen as undermining the Dublin convention (on refugees), of which both the UK and Malta were parties, he said.

Speaking on relations with Libya in the context of illegal migration, Mr Archer said the focus of EU-Libya relations had recently been on trying to secure the release of Bulgarian nurses given the death penalty for having allegedly infected patients with Aids.

This had been one of the issues raised by Prime Minister Tony Blair during his recent visit to Tripoli. He was reasonably optimistic that this issue would be satisfactorily settled in the near future, and he then expected illegal immigration to top the agenda of EU-Libya relations.

Questioned on the current EU summit on the future of Europe, Mr Archer said Britain wanted to see a deal struck, but no deal was better than a bad one.

Furthermore, not reaching a deal at this stage should not be painted as being a catastrophe. The EU of 27 was working well and the need for a new institutional architecture was not overwhelming.