Belgium has closed down its embassy in Malta, Times of Malta has learnt.

The Belgian government decided to close its mission in Malta a few weeks ago together with a number of other embassies around the world as part of cost-cutting measures, a spokesman for the Belgian Foreign Ministry confirmed.

“We are currently trying to scale down our overseas representations and Malta has been one of the places identified for closure,” he said. Belgium’s relations with Malta will now be conducted from its embassy in Rome.

The Maltese Foreign Ministry also confirmed that the Floriana embassy, has closed its doors, although it would not comment on whether the Government is now planning to scale down its own diplomatic presence in Belgium, as normally happens in such cases.

Apart from a fully-fledged permanent representation to the EU in Brussels, with some 60 diplomats, Dar Malta currently also hosts a separate office of its embassy in Belgium, with an ambassador and diplomatic staff.

Foreign Ministry sources questioned whether the closure of Belgium’s embassy in Malta justifies the expense for Malta to continue to have a separate embassy in Brussels.

“The ministry’s top officials had always questioned the need of such a separate embassy in Belgium once we already have a huge presence of diplomatic staff in the country working on the EU.

The current permanent representation can easily also carry the bi-lateral work without the need of a separate ambassador and personnel costing the country a lot of money.”

According to the 2013 Budget estimates, the presence of a Maltese embassy in Brussels costs the country some €334,000 a year. This is apart from almost €5 million a year spent for the operation of Malta’s Permanent Representation in Brussels.

Sources close to the ministry told Times of Malta that before the closure of Belgium’s embassy, the new administration had already started working on plans to appoint a former Labour Party official as ambassador to Belgium.

The plans might now have to change in view of the new diplomatic presence of Belgium in Malta.

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