NEWS 
On 2-3 October 2014 the Council for Maltese Living Abroad held its third annual meeting in Malta at the Ministry for Foreign Affairs, Palazzo Parisio in Valletta. The meeting was chaired by the Hon Dr George W Vella, Minister for Foreign Affairs.
In this meeting the Council discussed a variety of issues on its agenda, including the creation of a roadmap for the further development of the Maltese Government-Diaspora relations, biometric passport services, the establishment of the Maltese Cultural Institute, Maltese language teaching overseas, the teaching of the history of the Diaspora in Maltese schools, the Council’s website, and other matters that impact directly or indirectly Maltese communities overseas.
At the start of the meeting the members of the Council expressed their serious concerns at the lack of progress being made on several longstanding issues. Most of these issues have now been on the Council’s agenda since its inaugural meeting in September 2012. One important issue relates to applications for passports made by Maltese citizens living overseas in locations where there is no equipment required to gather the biometric data (e.g. Perth, Brisbane, Adelaide and Hobart in Australia, in New Zealand), necessitating great expense for them to travel to the nearest location (e.g. Melbourne, Sydney or Canberra) to apply for a Maltese passport. It has been over two years since a proposal to deploy portable equipment was mooted by the government as a possible solution to this problem. The proposal is still on the government’s drawing board with no deployment date in sight.
Council for Maltese Living Abroad meets in Malta
