Maltese officials being briefed on EU working groups participation

When Malta joins the European Union come May next year, Maltese officials will have to participate in some 200 different working groups dealing with a wide range of subject areas. Participation in these groups is particularly important since many matters are decided at this level.
Co-ordinating Malta’s input in these working groups will pose a particular challenge, but preparations are already in hand and the officials who will be involved have now been offered a singular opportunity to undertake training on how to operate within the EU system.
The Staff Development Organisation within the Office of the Prime Minister, has secured the services of the Centre for Political and Diplomatic Studies (CPDS) in the UK to deliver the training in Malta.
The programme is being funded by the British High Commission and will involve inputs from a number of serving and recently retired British government officials who have direct experience in dealing with EU institutions.
The training will tackle areas that are of crucial interest at this particular time. The participants will be trained, in a hands-on and participative manner, in dealing effectively with the demands that their increasingly active role in EU Council working groups will entail. They will be taken through the strategies and tactics inherent in such discussions, the issues that are involved in co-ordinating EU business at ministry level as well as those surrounding effective representation within the EU. Other key issues that will be dealt with during this programme are the policy-making process and the effective management of inter-ministerial relations and relations with Malta’s representative machinery in Brussels.
This workshop will help ensure that Malta’s position and representation within the EU council as a member state is effective and exploited to its full potential.
The programme, which kicked off yesterday, will wrap up on Friday.