Kurt Sansone
Muscat to meet Merkel in Berlin today
The Libyan crisis, irregular immigration and Greece will be on the agenda of talks between Prime Minister Joseph Muscat and German Chancellor Angela Merkel later on today.
Dr Muscat is in Berlin for a one-day visit, accompanied by Foreign Minister George Vella and Labour MP Silvio Schembri.
Bilateral relations between the EU’s smallest and largest countries will also be on the agenda as will the Ukrainian crisis.
The visit comes in the aftermath of a terrorist attack on the Maltese-owned Corinthia Hotel in Tripoli and the election in Greece of the far-left Syriza party that wants to renegotiate the bailout programme and seek debt relief from eurozone members.
Both Malta and Germany have ruled out debt forgiveness as part of any negotiated deal.
Malta has been pushing hard to have Libya high on the EU’s agenda, however the crisis has been overshadowed by events in Ukraine where fighting has resumed with intensity in eastern provinces.
After meeting Ms Merkel the Prime Minister will hold talks with the German-Maltese parliamentary friendship committee and in the evening deliver a talk at the social-democrat foundation Friedrich-Ebert-Stiftung on the development of a just Europe