Malta Seeks UNESCO World Heritage Committee Seat in Bid to Shape Global Cultural Future

**Malta Eyes Global Cultural Crown: Island Nation Seeks Seat on UNESCO’s Most Prestigious Stage**

Valletta – In a move that could amplify Malta’s voice on the world’s most influential cultural stage, the island nation has formally submitted its candidacy for a seat on the UNESCO World Heritage Committee, the 21-country body that decides which monuments, cities and landscapes are inscribed on the planet’s ultimate heritage list.

The bid, tabled at UNESCO headquarters in Paris last Friday, seeks one of the two seats reserved for Western European and North American states in the 2025-2029 term. If successful in the November election, Malta would sit at the table that green-lit our own Ħaġar Qim, Mnajdra and the City of Valletta – and would help shape the fate of future nominees from the Pyramids to the Great Barrier Reef.

“For a country the size of a Paris arrondissement, this is punching in the heavy-weight category,” Heritage Malta chairperson Mario Cutajar told *Hot Malta* inside the Grandmaster’s Palace, minutes after the candidacy dossier was couriered to UNESCO. “We’re not just lobbying for votes; we’re offering a Mediterranean micro-state perspective on how heritage can drive recovery, resilience and even migration policy.”

**From Megaliths to Membership**

Malta’s pitch leans heavily on its 7,000-year timeline – older than the Egyptian pyramids – and on its track record of rescuing heritage under fire. The dossier highlights how the islands rebuilt the Royal Opera House ruins into the open-air Pjazza Teatru Rjal, and how a team of Maltese conservators restored 18th-century chandeliers in war-torn Damascus, a project UNESCO still cites as a model of post-conflict cultural diplomacy.

“We’ve been custodians of world heritage long before the term existed,” argues Dr Isabelle Vella, curator at the National Museum of Archaeology. “Our temples survived earthquakes, corsairs and Luftwaffe bombs. That lived experience is what we bring to a committee often dominated by large states.”

**Community Stakes: Beyond the Bragging Rights**

While diplomats wine and dine envoys for votes in New York and Geneva, the bid is already echoing in village cores. In Sliema, café owner Marisa Camilleri has pinned a “UNESCO 2025” sticker on her menu blackboard. “If Malta gets in, cruise lines will market us as the country that *chooses* heritage, not just *has* it. That’s more feet on my floor,” she laughs, frothing a cappuccino for a Danish tourist googling “Malta UNESCO committee”.

The Malta Hotels and Restaurants Association forecasts a 7% bump in off-season occupancy if the bid succeeds, citing data from Portugal’s 2015-2019 committee term that saw a 12% rise in cultural tourism. “Heritage is our low-carbon industry,” MHRA president Tony Zahra insists. “We can’t manufacture cars, but we can sell prehistoric mystery at sunset.”

**Youth Angle: TikTok Meets Temples**

At the University of Malta, students are crowdsourcing a social-media campaign under the hashtag #MaltaChoosesYou. Classics student Leila Ebejer, 20, has already racked up 1.3 million views on a TikTok that morphs the Ġgantija giants into Marvel-style superheroes. “We’re telling Gen Z that if Malta wins, they’ll have a direct line to decide whether Venice gets flood barriers or whether Kathmandu’s temples survive the next quake,” she says, adjusting her phone’s ring-light inside a Mnajdra temple.

**The Road to November**

Malta faces stiff competition from Switzerland and Austria, both with deeper diplomatic pockets. Yet officials point to a secret weapon: the 163-member Global Organisation of Small Island States (GOOSIS), which Malta helped found in 2022. “That’s 163 potential votes in a secret ballot,” a foreign-ministry source winks, refusing to be named.

Back in Valletta, as the sun sets on the Saluting Battery, 72-year-old painter John Borg is capturing the bastions in watercolour. “I’ve seen Valletta go from black-and-white to Technicolor,” he muses. “If we get on that committee, maybe my grandchildren will paint a world that chooses to protect colour itself.”

Whether or not the canvass of diplomacy delivers a November triumph, Malta has already framed itself as more than a dot in the Mediterranean – it is a micro-state with a macro-vision for heritage that belongs to everyone.