Once little Joey has his way, the Polish Straż Graniczna will read what’s written on your passport in reverse:

“No in, U European.”

Love your story, Baxxter. Hope you have the same experience once little Joey has his way. Doubt it.

I’ve already told you I will adopt you, automatic Canadian passport.

I was held up at the Polish border (while LEAVING Poland) by four huge Straż Graniczna officers in full tactical kit, plus sidearm and automatic weapon, gruffly asking me something in their strange lingo.

So I reminded myself that I went to a public school (I didn’t) and that my back is ramrod-straight and my upper lip is stiff (it wasn’t) and with a breezy Surrey accent I said: “Now look here old chap, I’m sure this is all a terrible mistake.”

One of them, who looked like he could wrestle an aurochs, said: “Passport!”

So, slowly lowering my trembling hands, I reached for my passport and handed them the precious document.

They looked at it suspiciously, then read the words ‘European Union’, and suddenly their whole attitude changed. They scanned it on their gizmos, and with beaming smiles they wished me “nays trip wish enjoy Poland.”

That is what the EU is all about.

But elsewhere outside the EU, in particular the US and certainly before Malta became eligible for the visa waiver programme, I have routinely matched the red-alert-profile. Independent traveller, female, Arabic-looking words on her passport.

I have been met with smiles by United Airlines ground staff: “Madam, you have been randomly selected for an enhanced security check.”

I have been rudely questioned by Swiss (the airline) staff in Zurich and asked to produce my ticket at the gate.

Got grilled at Montreal.

I once had my passport stamped in London by a cross immigration officer (we were in Schengen then; he had to cancel the stamp) and he had the effrontery to complain I did not look European, when he was a Sikh South Asian.

[Daphne – Britain is not in Schengen. That’s not why your passport isn’t stamped in London: it’s because Malta and Britain are both in the European Union; Schengen has nothing to do with it.]

I will spare you the details of interrogations at Ben Gurion Airport. It could have been worse had I been named Abdilla.

My only consoling thought till then was that these perceptions were based on unfair racial profiling. And it certainly helps to have MALTA backed up by UNJONI EWROPEA on the passport front cover. Some of this has stopped since 2004.

Frankfurt airport employees would no longer ask for a visa while en route to Malta. UNJONI EWROPEA is recognisable to non-Maltese speakers.

Without wanting to sound sensationalist at all, the practical consequence of the scheme, is indeed further hardship for Malta-born Maltese at non-Schengen border controls. It was such a pleasure to travel to the US lately and report that crossing the border was a non-event.

I couldn’t afford a Maltese passport under the new scheme, and nor can the vast majority of Maltese. Life was worse for most of us in the green passport days which we have happily forgotten.

Don’t know who to thank…don’t know how to conclude this post….but probably, Ms. Reding has hit the nail on the head. While people justifiably worry about criminals and other shady applicants, the real daily impact will be on ordinary citizens.

[Daphne – You are quite right on that score.]

All Maltese won’t continue to enjoy the smooth passage that we enjoyed up to now. ALL Malta passport holders will be subject to the delays and irritations of the special scrutiny that will become necessary to weed out those undesirables who bought an ersatz citizenship so as to masquerade as Maltese when they were really suspect foreigners with the flimsiest, if any connection, with the island.

I have been frisked and had my hand-luggage searched more than a couple of times while travelling to/from various European countries.

I have had my suitcase “randomly” selected for a “routine” search on leaving Heathrow for Malta with my quasi-British-looking husband, whose suitcase was not searched, unlike mine.

I have even had to endure being frisked when heavily pregnant with one child while travelling with another – who was then separately searched in her push-chair – from Rome to Malta.

Now that my children are older, I have, on the last couple occasions, been spared the frisking, only to have my fair-skinned daughter being selected for “random” frisking.

My crime? I am a true Maltese, with typical black hair and an olive complexion – Semitic colouring, if you wish. With Muscat’s new sale-of-passports scheme, it can only get worse.

It will now only get worse.