Those Algerians are not shopping around. They’re going straight to the Maltese consulate.

From an article in The Malta Independent today:

Dr Muscat said that shopping around for Schengen visas is actually impossible, as all applications are uploaded to a common pan-EU system for all member states to vet.

Ah, but those Algerians haven’t been shopping around. They are going straight to the Maltese consulate. There is no other possible reason why the Maltese consulate would have been flooded with visas applications from around 15,000 Algerian citizens within 18 months of opening its doors.

It is obvious that unofficial word must have gone out in Algeria – and then spread like wildfire – that your best bet for a Schengen visa was the Maltese consulate, so go straight there.

And the Maltese government must have been in on this because it opened the consulate and dovetailed the Air Malta flights with it, and above all, it must have known that 15,000 Algerians didn’t suddenly wake up with a burning desire to come to Malta for whatever reason.