The Permanent Secretary at the Ministry for Foreign Affairs, Cecilia Attard Pirotta has been nominated by the government as deputy secretary general of the newly-formed Union for the Mediterranean.
Ms Attard Pirotta, who in the past also served as Malta's Ambassador to Spain, will shortly be moving to Barcelona where the UfM headquarters is sited and will be responsible for social and civil affairs. This role includes the coordination of civil protection among the 43 member states of the UfM.
Her nomination was approved by the UfM members. Six posts of deputy secretary generals are available.
The nominations of Italy and Greece have also been approved as the organisation awaits the nominations of Israel and the National Palestinian Authority.
The UfM was officially launched in 2008 on the initiative of French President Nicolas Sarkozy and aims to take over the EU's Barcelona Mediterranean Process, bringing together all the EU member states and Arab countries, mainly North African.
The former Jordanian Ambassador to the EU, Ahmad Masadeh, was appointed as the first Secretary General of the UfM and has already started working with a core team of officials from Barcelona's Palacio de Padralbes, the designated headquarters.
Ms Attard Pirotta was the first woman to be appointed Permanent Secretary at the Foreign Ministry in 2004. She has worked at the Foreign Ministry since her student days in the mid-1980s and worked her way up the career ladder occupying various important posts within Malta's diplomatic service.
The post of UfM deputy secretary general was allocated to Malta as a result of a political compromise reached during negotiations on the siting of the new organisation.
Malta had submitted a bid to host the UfM's secretariat but had withdrawn its bid to make way for Spain. In return, Malta was given the right to nominate a candidate to occupy one of the six deputy secretary general posts and to host a small liaison office for relations between the EU and the Arab league.
Though the UfM has been up and running for almost two years, little concrete results have been achieved so far as talks are often hampered by infighting, particularly between the Arab member states and Israel.
The next summit of the UfM is expected to be held this June in Barcelona.