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Karl Schembri
The news of the closure of the Maltese Embassy in Hungary – less than a year after former Prime Minister Eddie Fenech Adami opened it himself – marked the new leadership’s change of heart about the need to invest in Budapest, much to the Opposition’s delight.
Only last March, Fenech Adami officially inaugurated the embassy in Budapest accompanied by former Foreign Minister Joe Borg and then Personal Assistant Richard Cachia Caruana.
The Opposition was harshly critical of the embassy opening, saying that the low level of commerce between the two countries did not justify having an embassy in Budapest.
The Hungarian government had made it clear it would not open an embassy in Malta back then, adding even more fuel to the fire of the Opposition, which claimed the government went on an unnecessary spending spree in Budapest just because Hungary was joining the European Union in two months’ time.
Now government is saying it is embarking on a policy “to regionalise its embassies” and the responsibility for Malta’s contacts with Hungary will fall under the Vienna embassy. Foreign Minister Michael Frendo said in parliament that the decision was taken on his own proposal of a “rationalisation plan”.
“It proves how right we were,” Labour’s Foreign Affairs Shadow Minister, Leo Brincat, retorted.
Meanwhile the car bought by Ambassador Noel Buttigieg Scicluna, a Euro 31,000 BMW 520, came under the spotlight last week when the Labour spokesman asked questions about the purchase, saying it was shameful that this car had been bought when it was known that the embassy would close.
The foreign minister promptly replied: “The car was bought in June 2004, months before the decision to close the embassy.”
He said the car will be used in another embassy “as required”, although no plans have been made yet to transfer it elsewhere.
“I appeal to the Opposition to be serious and not superficial in its criticism,” Frendo said.
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