Despite the fact that the Armed Forces of Malta’s remit has been extended significantly since the onslaught of the irregular migration phenomenon, Malta’s defence expenditure remains proportionately one of the European Union’s lowest. Malta is also, by far, the EU’s lowest spender on military equipment procurement, spending just €103 per soldier on equipment in 2006.

The findings result from an extensive study drawn up by former European Defence Agency chief executive and current European Council on Foreign Relations Senior Policy Fellow Nick Witney. The report, “Re-energising Europe’s security and defence policy”, has been widely reported across Europe this week given that it found the EU’s capacity to defend itself from outside threats unimpressive and that much of the e200 billion Europe spends annually on defence is wasted.

But at least Malta is not ‘wasting’ any funds, according to the report’s comparative findings.

For starters, Malta, according to the report, spent just e103 per soldier on equipment procurement in 2006 – compared with the EU average of e20,002 per soldier and five times less than the EU’s penultimate lowest spender on equipment, Cyprus, which forked out e546 per soldier in 2006.

According to the report, the AFM, from the budget it is provided, spent a total of e230,000 on equipment procurement in 2006, compared to the penultimate Cypriot figure of e7 million.

Malta spent, in 2006, 0.72 per cent of its gross domestic product on defence – making the country the EU’s lowest military spender after Luxemburg and Ireland.

The lion’s share of Malta’s military expenditure, according to the report, goes toward personnel, or salary, expenditure. In 2006, the AFM spent 73 per cent of its military expenditure on salaries – far above the EU average of 55 per cent.

But despite certain limitations in terms of assets at its disposal, AFM Brigadier Carmel Vassallo said recently he believes the AFM has done “admirably” in spite of the challenges it is facing, not least of which is the challenge of irregular migration.

“In comparison to others countries that have more means and more personnel at their disposal, we can do almost just what they can, but with much less equipment and far fewer human resources,” he commented in a recent interview with this newspaper.

In the report, Mr Witney describes how a landmark European peacekeeping mission was funded by a whip-round of staff and a loan from a British ambassador’s entertainment budget. It also exposed wasteful, piecemeal and sometimes chaotic joint defence tactics which, it says, threaten the smooth running of Europe’s plans under the Lisbon Treaty to step up combined defence initiatives and boost the EU’s international role.

He also paints a picture of the EU’s foreign policy chief Javier Solana phoning national defence ministries begging for the odd plane, surgeon or expert to bolster Europe’s joint efforts – all of which does not bode well for Malta’s continuous calls for more States to participate more tangibly in Frontex patrol missions, or indeed to assist Malta with its disproportionate burden of the irregular migration phenomenon.