Article 8 of the Vienna Convention on Diplomatic Relations
The Vienna Convention on Diplomatic Relations, which regulates these issues, on the matter of a diplomat who has the nationality of the receiving state, as in the case of Malta’s new ambassador Charles Muscat, who is Australian and whose family have been there for a couple of generations:
Article 8
1.Members of the diplomatic staff of the mission should in principle be of the nationality of the sending State.
2.Members of the diplomatic staff of the mission may not be appointed from among persons having the nationality of the receiving State, except with the consent of that State which may be withdrawn at any time.
No wonder Australia objected so strongly and conceded so reluctantly. It’s not just because the sum total of his background is running a Canberra boutique for men.
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Abso-fucking-lutely.
This Muscat holds Australian citizenship.
What if Australia wishes to expel the Ambassador of Malta? It cannot expel one of its own citizens.
Nation of pimps, crooks, scoundrels, cretins and troglodytic wogs.
When I finally burn my Maltese passport I’ll light a pyre that’ll make Krakatoa look like a safety match.
What if Malta wishes to recall her ambassador in protest?
Her? Its.
I suppose ours will just go back to his shop.
Same applies to Clifford Borg Marks entrusted with Malta’ s relations China. For crying out loud, these people don’t even live in Malta – as if they care about our lives here on this island.
The Australian government understands that these are hard times for any Eurozone country and we’ll have to make do with an Aussie tailor. After all, he’s a Muscat – one of us.
Charles Muscat and Clifford Borg Marks are not even eligible to vote in Maltese elections. And yet they are representing the country.
If the coming election in Australia produces a new government it might have the sense to repudiate this appointment. The morale of Malta’s professional diplomatic corps must be at its lowest ebb since the eighties. What a waste of talent and experience.
A matter of time now till the Australian Government decides to downgrade its representation here, using as a gift excuse from Malta, that all the latter can be bothered with is appointing an Australian national from the suburbs who has not lived in Malta at all.
Similarly in 1971, the MLP appointed Joe Forace, also an Australian citizen, and also an ALP activist, with dire consequences. In 1972, he fell out with his old ALP buddy Geoff Whitlam, then Prime Minister. A year later, the ALP lost to the Liberal Party, and Malta’s – read MLP – High Commissioner couldn’t buy a bloke a free drink from then on.
You leave out Forace’s biggest blunder as Malta’s High Commissioner. He encouraged the Maltese community to vote for the Labour Party in the Australian elections.
Whether he did this on his own initiative or following instructions from Malta is not known.
The Australian Labour Party lost the election and Malta’s relations with that country plummeted to insignificance.
The outgoing Labour government in Australia has reluctantly agreed to the present nomination. What will happen if the party is not re-elected?
The government seem to have confused the roles of ambassador and consul.
No, it has not. It is being defiant at it has been in the past, ignoring the fact that such an attitude is not conducive to good bilateral relations.
@ Pablo…do you know what the hell you are talking about? WHO is “Geoff Whitlam?” Do you realise that GOUGH Whitlam was one of the greatest Prime Ministers Australia ever had until he was ousted by a CIA backed coup? PLEASE read your history before you make such stupid comments.
As for being an Australian citizen, I ALSO became one but not until 1988 when it became legally possible to be BOTH. While I have lived in Australia since I was a 12 year old child, I am also proud to be a citizen of Malta.
[Daphne – You became a Maltese citizen in 1988. Significant – it was one of the first liberties the incoming Nationalist government made possible after the outgoing Mintoffian/KMB regime made it impossible for 16 years, along with Maltese women having to leave Malta if they married non-Maltese men, because only ‘foreign wives’ were permitted by the Mintoffian regime to live in Malta, and not ‘foreign husbands’. And yet, you remain a committed Laburist, as though politics has nothing to do with policy and beliefs, and is just a football club which you support mindlessly. As somebody who has always taken a decision on how to vote on the basis of rational assessment, I find people who reason as you do absolutely fascinating.]
Let us not forget that post 1987 the Fenech Adami administration also negotiated for the benefit of Maltese migrants better pension access under a bilateral Social Security Agreement.
Which side will Charles Muscat take if there is a diplomatic problem between his home country, where he lives and has his business (Australia) and the country he represents as ambassador (Malta)?
Our prime minister has escalated from granting a “waiver” not to comply with Malta parliamentary code of ethics to a (failed) attempt to flout international law regarding pushbacks and now to ignoring the Vienna Convention on Diplomatic Relations. What next?