Malta’s external security

Abstract

For a small country whose main relevance to the outside world has always been its strategic location and whose known history has been moulded by that fact, security has been remarkably low on the list of priorities on Malta’s national agenda since independence. In recent years, security has become an issue of keen political debate, although security per se may not be the real reason why the subject has been brought out into the limelight by both government and opposition. More than just an issue in its own right, security began featuring rather more as a function of the main direction of Malta’s foreign policy, which during the past decade has been focused on relations with the European Union.