SME Chamber President meets MDB Officials
22 April 2024
Malta Chamber of SMEs President Mr Paul Abela met MDB Chairman Leo Brincat and CEO...
Commission opens delegation in Tripoli
26 November 2011
Catherine Ashton, the EU's foreign policy chief, was in Tripoli on Saturday 12th November to open the EU's new delegation there. Plans for such a delegation were put on hold when Libyans rose up against Muammar Qaddafi in February. Instead, it fell to Hungary – holder of the rotating presidency of the Council of Ministers in the first half of 2010 – to co-ordinate support to EU citizens during the war, keeping its embassy open.
The EU opened an office in Benghazi, the rebel capital, in May; but Qaddafi's flight from Tripoli in August then made it possible to open a fully fledged EU delegation. The delegation is headed temporarily by James Moran, who is taking a few months off from his regular job as director for Asia in the European External Action Service (EEAS). Moran was responsible for relations with several of the EU's strategic partners, including China, India and Japan, so Ashton's decision to second him to Tripoli is a bit strange, though anything is possible in the parallel universe that is the EEAS.
