The space per employee at the now famous Dar Malta is also smaller, when compared to that of other countries.

This information was revealed to The Malta Independent by the producers of Bondiplus, who will be tackling the purchase of the Maltese Embassy in the first edition of their new series, at 8.40pm tonight on TVM.

The tables accompanying this article show that the Maltese embassy is 2,778 square metres. Sixty-two employees will be working there, which means the space per employee is 44.8 metres.

All the other countries listed in the table have bigger embassies and more space per employee. For example, Germany has an embassy of 12,000 square metres with an average space of 63.5 square metres per employee.

At 62, the number of Maltese staff is also one of the lowest among the countries in the European Union. Only Slovenia (49), Latvia (47) and Lithuania (46) have fewer people working in their embassies.

The top three are Spain (238), Germany (189) and France (171).

Presenter Lou Bondi and his assistant Rachel Attard travelled to Brussels to investigate the purchase of Dar Malta, which was the hottest issue during the summer months.

As part of their investigations they spoke to the estate agency which negotiated the sale and two more real estate companies in Brussels.

They researched the property market to see how Dar Malta compares with other property in the Belgian capital and also investigated whether it would have been cheaper or not to have rented the property.

The guests on tonight’s Bondiplus will be Malta Labour Party leader Alfred Sant and Parliamentary Secretary Tonio Fenech.

Country Embassy employees

Spain 238

Germany 189

France 171

United Kingdom 145

Greece 142

Italy 127

Belgium 119

Holland 109

Sweden 108

Portugal 104

Austria 99

Finland 94

Hungary 94

Poland 92

Czech Republic 92

Ireland 88

Denmark 70

Estonia 66

Slovakia 64

Malta 62

Slovenia 49

Latvia 47

Lithuania 46

Country Space Employees Space per employee

Sq m Sq m/employee

Malta 2,778 62 44.8

Hungary 4,350 94 46.3

Austria 5,000 99 50.5

Estonia 3,560 66 53.9

Slovakia 3,500 64 54.7

United Kingdom 8,000 145 55.2

Portugal 6,000 104 57.7

Germany 12,000 189 63.5