President Marie Louise Coleiro Preca is still awaiting confirmation from the Vatican to meet Pope Francis. “At this point it is not up to us, we are awaiting confirmation,” a spokesperson for the President said in comments to The Malta Independent. Earlier this month, on a local TV programme, the president said that she will be going to Rome by end June; however the presidential diary confirms that this is not the case.

The head of state has been criticised for breaking with tradition and flying to Poland on her first visit abroad, rather than going to Rome as her predecessors had done. Prior to this presidency, it had long been a practice that the head of state’s first visit outside Malta is made to the Pope; however Marie Louise Coleiro Preca visited Poland for the 25th anniversary of Polish freedom in Warsaw.

At the end of April, the president cancelled her participation in Rome for the canonization of Pope John XXIII and Pope John Paul II. Later on, the President said that she cancelled her trip due to a launch of a series of UNHCR meetings regarding immigration. Malta was represented in Rome by a delegation led by Speaker of the house Anglu Farrugia, PN deputy leader Beppe Fenech Adami and the Prime Minister’s wife Michelle Muscat.