I have seen several biometric passports issued by Malta and have found a grammatical error on the last page of the passport. Mine was issued on December 12 and still bears the same mistake even though I had written to the Passports Office about this over two months ago. As with most things in Malta, it seems the only means of rectifying this error is a letter to The Times.

The current tongue twister reads as follows:

“Every citizen of the Union shall, in the territory of a third country in which member state of which he is a national is not represented, be entitled to protection by the diplomatic or consular authorities of any member state, on the same conditions as the nationals of that state”. This lacks basic syntax.

It should read: “Every citizen of the Union shall be entitled to protection by the diplomatic or consular authorities of any member state, of which he is not a national, when in the territory of a Third Country”. Capitals are required for “Third Country”.