Malta will host the European Union-Arab League Foreign Ministers meeting on 11 and 12 February, to be co-chaired by Slovenia, Saudi Arabia and Malta.

It will bring together the senior officials of the two organisations and the Foreign Ministers of the 27 member states of the European Union and the 22 states of the Arab League.

Foreign Minister Michael Frendo told a news conference that through this initiative Malta is showing that it can play a pivotal role in enhancing dialogue and cooperation between the European Union and the Arab world. The Malta meeting will send a strong political message in favour of the politics of moderation and against extremism and division.

The European Union’s high representative for foreign policy, Javier Solana, and Commissioner Benita Ferrero Waldner, responsible for external relations and neighbourhood policy, and Amre Moussa, secretary general of the League of Arab States, will be among those attending the meeting.

Dr Frendo said he launched the initiative for the meeting in September 2006 in a letter to the Finnish presidency, followed by an aide-memoire delineating the possible agenda items for discussion, sent to the German Presidency a few months later.

The Portuguese presidency of the EU, in agreement with the League of Arab States, organised in December 2007, a meeting of senior officials from the two organisations and their member states in Brussels to settle the date and draft agenda of the meeting.

The Slovenian presidency of the European Union and Malta as a host country, have now issued formal invitations for the Malta meeting.