Malta will still be able to be at the helm of the EU despite the changes to the six-month rotating Presidency, which came with the Lisbon Treaty in December.
As EU leaders started their two-day Brussels summit on Thursday, the last under Nice Treaty rules, a spokesman for the European Council said the traditional six-month rotating Presidency would not be completely abolished but only fine-tuned.
"The rotating Presidency (a system through which each member state gets to chair the EU's agenda for six months) will still be in place but with some important changes, including that EU summits are no longer presided over by the heads of state/government of the incumbent Presidency but by the full-time EU Council President (former Belgian Prime Minister Herman van Rompuy) appointed by EU leaders every two-and-a-half years," he explained.
According to an agreed schedule, Malta will have the six-month EU Presidency in the first semester of 2017. This means that the political party that wins the next general election, due by 2013, will have to prepare for the EU Presidency, no mean task for a small country like Malta.
Malta's role will be to come up with an agenda for the EU and ministers will have to prepare and run the various formations of the Council, including economics and financial affairs, general affairs, agriculture and justice and home affairs.
"Malta will not chair the summits and the Foreign Affairs Ministerial Council but will have the responsibility to be in the driving seat when it comes to the other council formations," the spokesman said.
Under the new rules, member states will be working in tandem with two other Presidencies to come out with an 18-month programme. Malta will thus have to start working with the two Presidencies preceding its term, the Netherlands and Slovakia.
Normally, member states start their final preparations about four years before their actual appointment.
Malta's presence in Brussels will also need to be beefed up substantially with the number of Maltese officials assigned to Dar Malta expected to at least double to about 120 officials some two years before Malta's Presidency officially kicks in.
A special multi-million euro budget will be required to organise hundreds of EU meetings on the island and to take advantage of the visibility Malta will gain through its six-month stint at the helm of the EU.