Malta & EU

German-Maltese Circle: Mutual Admiration Society

Although the German-Maltese Circle officials deny fostering any political connections between the two countries, we are including the GMC in the European Union section of our website - it is a perfect example of intercultural cooperation, which other EU members and non-members would do well to emulate. GMC's official goal is to "promote friendship between Malta and Germany," and it certainly seems to be achieving this aim!

We visited the GMC twice in its beautiful location, the 16th-century Messina Palace on St Christopher Street. Valletta. Our tour of the palace included the library of German books for all reading levels, conference rooms, cafeteria, and classrooms for teaching German. We were amazed to see about 40 Maltese school-aged children spending their whole Saturday morning taking extracurricular German classes! We interviewed one mother, who underlined the importance attached to learning foreign languages in Malta, particularly in light of the (in her opinion) probable entrance of Malta into the EU. One of our students suggested an email exchange between pupils at a Siegen school (writing in English) with Maltese pupils (writing in German) - the GMC was pleased with her initiative!

The GMC, founded in 1962 organizes exhibitions, film shows, forums, concerts by visiting German choirs and orchestras, social and sports events. An historical highlight, commemorated with a plaque, took place in 1990 when the GMC hosted a visit by President Richard von Weizsäcker. The GMC works closely with its sister organization in Germany, the Deutsch-Maltesische Gesellschaft in Adenau, near Bonn, founded eleven years ago, which has approximately 150 members all over Germany.