Fifty years after coming together as a trading block, the European Union, with the Lisbon Treaty under the belt, will take a momentous step forward at this week’s summit in Brussels.

At a working dinner, EU heads of state and government will make three new top appointments – that of President of the European Council, that of the EU Foreign Relations Chief and that of the largely  bureaucratic Secretary General of the Council. All three positions were created by the Lisbon Treaty and all are designed to make the Union run more efficiently and give it a more robust voice on the world stage.

The process governing the creation of these new posts is still somewhat unclear. Poland wants the Council to hold hearings. Polish Foreign Minister Radek Sikorski and his Lithuanian counterpart Vygaudas Usacks have been promoting this idea in EU capitals for weeks now. A high level dinner was held …

A friend called the other day to see whether I had read the latest Eurobarometer survey on discrimination in Europe.

‘Fancy becoming Prime Minister?’, she asked? ‘Going by what the Maltese believe you’d be a dead ringer for the job’, she sped on.

I instantly reined her in: I already have a job, was on my way to the next and the last thing I wanted was to become a politician I told her.

’And don’t go starting any wild rumours’, I warned her.

According to the EU survey the Maltese will gladly vote in a female to run the country - granted she is not a lesbian, is a Roman Catholic and comes from the same ethnic group as the rest of us.

This is where it comes from.

When it comes to discrimination against immigrants 77% of respondents believe this is rampant and grew further these past five years. A minority, 22%, don’t care …

Here’s a little something that leaves me nonplussed. The Malta Standards Authority this week announced it was banning that those rather convenient flat three pin plastic socket converter we use around the house as adaptors for electric goods. In a statement, the Authority said we all run the risk of being electrocuted. They leave socket gates open and have no fuse- which makes it all very dangerous. Shops were urged to stop selling them.

My point is this. Why do we have to buy those convertors in the first place? Simple. Because appliances are being allowed into the country with the wrong plugs and which, like the flat convertors have no fuse either. So why are importers being given free rein to bring into the island electrical goods whose plug can get you to meet your Maker at the drop of a hat - unless you are either a born electrician …

After much careful planning and dexterous restoration, Europe House in Valletta was inaugurated on Monday night in the style this grand Seventeenth Century edifice deserves. And I could not have been more proud. I am truly thankful to the myriad of people and the hard work put into bringing this magnificent building back to life.

As you can all imagine the inauguration was taxing in the preparation and exhausting in the execution but it all paid off in the end.
As we greeted guests – some 300 of them including the President of the Republic Dr George Abela, Opposition Leader Dr Joseph Muscat, Stavros Lambridinis, Vice President of the European Parliament, Jean Pierre Vandersteen, the Director of Resources at DG Communication and Bill Martin a dear colleague from Brussels - I could not help notice how struck people were with the astute manner in which the house has been restored. The overall …

Much confusion came in the wake of the oddball ruling by the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg, which banned the Italian government from displaying crucifixes on classroom walls.

The action was brought by an Italian atheist, Ms.Soleil Loutsi who complained crucifixes inside state schools ran counter to her right to provide her children a secular education. In an award which was later widely lambasted for its controversial reasoning, the court agreed with Ms Loutsi – and fined Italy € 5,000 - probably the easiest € 5,000 the woman ever made in her life.

The confusion arose from people not knowing the difference between the European Court of Human Rights and the European Court of Justice. One has nothing to do with the other and the deciding court has absolutely nothing to do with the European Union. The European Court of Human Rights is a Council of Europe court. It has …