A Malta-based liaison office should become the focal point for regional summits between the EU and Arab League states, according to Foreign Affairs Minister Tonio Borg.

The European Commission’s League of Arab States liaison office was inaugurated in October 2009 and yesterday Dr Borg blamed its hitherto negligible impact on “pockets of resistance” within Arab regimes.

Following events of the so-called Arab Spring, these pockets could now disappear and pave the way for the liaison office to become the region’s permanent mechanism for dialogue and regional cooperation, Dr Borg said.

He was opening a roundtable conference themed Assessing The Achievements Of The Arab Spring. Organised by the International Policy and Leadership Institute, the event brought together regional policy experts, academics and students from across the Mediterranean.

Europe and the Arab world had yet to establish an effective, permanent forum for political and economic dialogue despite multiple attempts to do so. Dr Borg acknowledged the confusion, saying that “one needs a glossary” to get to grips with all the various Mediterranean forums.

“I have no objection to these different forums, provided they serve a purpose,” he said.

Speaking of the Nicolas Sarkozy-driven Union for the Mediterranean, which has flattered to deceive since its July 2008 inception, Dr Borg said that while its project-driven objectives were “clear and praiseworthy” it had been “naive” to ignore the political realities of its various member states.

It was telling that the Union for the Mediterranean’s last gathering of foreign ministers dated back to November 2008, Dr Borg said.

Malta’s geostrategic location and its unique cross-fertilisation of Arabic and Romance culture and language made it the ideal territory for dialogue between the two geopolitical regions.

“Our DNA is firmly situated in Europe but we have a strong Mediterranean vocation,” the minister said.

He reiterated his call, first made some weeks ago, for Europe not to fear the advent of Islamic democracies across the Arab world.

“Many post-war governments in Europe were Christian democratic ones,” Dr Borg observed, “so why not have Islamic democratic ones in the Arab world?”

Ultimately, the governments in Tunisia, Libya, Egypt and other Arab countries would be judged by their actions not adjectives, Dr Borg concluded.

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