President to visit Australia in the coming months

President George Abela should be visiting Australia in the coming months, he said this morning.

Speaking at the end of a seven-day convention for Maltese emigrants, Dr Abela said that thanks to dual citizenship a lot of emigrants continued to feel Maltese.

However, it was important for Maltese emigrants to fully integrate in the community they are living.

Initiatives such as that announced this week through which five scholarships were to be open to Maltese emigrants or descendants to follow courses at the University of Malta specialising in the Maltese language could help keep Maltese language and culture alive.

Foreign Minister Tonio Borg said the concept of Maltese emigrants had changed to one of a greater Malta.

He promised that all the papers that were submitted during the conference would be scrutinised by a council that would be set up for Maltese communities living abroad.

This would see how to spread and keep alive Maltese language and culture within the communities.

Dr Borg said that when the citizenship reforms were implemented, many Maltese living abroad applied for dual citizenship creating a backlog which was being worked upon.

The minister promised to take up some of the proposals that were made during the convention and implement them before the next convention took place.