Consular Protection to Unrepresented EU Nationals in Third Countries

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Through the provisions of Council Directive (EU) 2015/637 of 20 April 2015 on the coordination and cooperation measures to facilitate consular protection for unrepresented citizens of the Union in third countries, any EU citizen in a non-EU country where his/her own national state* has no diplomatic representation is entitled to protection by the diplomatic or consular authorities of any other EU country. EU citizens are entitled to protection under the same conditions as the nationals of that EU country.

The protection typically offered by Embassies/Consulates of EU countries includes:

assistance in cases of death;
assistance in cases of serious accident or illness;
assistance in cases of arrest or detention;
assistance to victims of violent crime;

the relief and repatriation of distressed Union citizens;
a need for emergency travel documents.

Malta has transposed the Directive through an Act to make provision for consular protection to unrepresented citizens. The Act was published in the Government Gazette of 27 April 2018. The Directive entered into force on 1 May 2018.

Further information on the aforementioned EU Directive can be found on the following link: https://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/TXT/HTML/?uri=CELEX:32015L0637&from=EN

*A Member State is considered not represented in a third country if it has no embassy or consulate established there on a permanent basis, or if it has no embassy, consulate or Honorary Consul there which is effectively in a position to provide consular protection in a given case.