Mediterranean Blue, May 2 2004
The recent expansion of the European Union includes three different Mediterranean countries: Slovenia, Malta and Cyprus. The only thing they all have in common is that they are small, both in size and in population. Apart from this, they really are different, each of them being strategic in its own particular way and each having a particular appeal for visitors.

Slovenia is a new, rich country, set to be the EU's corridor to Central Europe. For the visitor, it might almost not be a Mediterranean country at all: its attractions are its mountains and the activities that go with them: skiing, walking... It also has a thriving health tourism industry in its spas. Malta is the Mediterranean's most central island except for Sicily, and historically has always held a particular strategic value for its control of sea routes. Nowadays, the most obvious manifestation of this is its hard-to-match cruise industry. It is also a point of contact with North Africa, having particularly interesting links with Libya. For visitors, it is a family holiday choice, with an interesting coastline, charming towns and villages, a well developed infrastructure and plenty of package holiday offers. It has also established itself with some success as a partygoer's holiday centre competing with Ibiza, the differentiating factor being that drugs are strictly controlled on Malta. Cyprus is still a divided island after the recent referendum at which the Greek Cypriot community rejected the UN's reunification plan. However, the EU now seems to be determined to develop ties with the previously ostracised northern, Turkish, part of the island. There is a certain amount of petulance in this, the feeling being that the Greek Cypriots are an ungrateful lot, but also a desire not to reduce Turkey's own expectations of joining the European Union, and a recognition that Northern Cyprus is a pocket of poverty in the Mediterranean which should not exist as such. For visitors, Cyprus is an old Mediterranean favourite, one of the original package tourism destinations, and it is still a family holiday favourite.