During his official two-day visit to Bahrain, President Nikos Christodoulides inaugurated the Cyprus Republic’s embassy in Manama on Monday. Cyprus now has an embassy in all Gulf states apart from Iraq. It has embassies in Doha, Abu Dhabi, Muscat, Kuwait City and Riyadh, which is quite astonishing considering the size of the country. Only three other EU member states have an embassy in Bahrain.

This, according to Christodoulides, demonstrated the Cyprus government’s determination to strengthen its relations with the Gulf states. The strengthening of EU-Gulf ties is also part of Cyprus’ priorities during its presidency of the EU Council, he added, pointing out that Bahrain was an “essential partner in materialising this vision.” Like Cyprus, Bahrain has a clear role as a bridge between regions and markets, the president said.

So, are we to deduce that the government decided to open an embassy in Bahrain because it wants to strengthen EU-Gulf ties during the six months it will hold the presidency of the EU Council? This cannot be the case because there are no plans to close the embassy at the end of June when the Cyprus presidency comes to an end and the plans for strengthening EU-Gulf ties, which is a Cyprus initiative, will be dropped.

Was another embassy in the Gulf, already very well covered with Cyprus embassies, necessary? Could the objective of closer EU-Gulf ties not have been pursued as effectively without the permanent expense of an embassy in Manama, which could have been covered by one of the other embassies in the Gulf? It just does not make economic, or diplomatic for that matter, sense.

This is no disrespect to Bahrain, but Cyprus is a tiny country which does not have unlimited funds for embassies, nor does it have such an influential role in international affairs or world trade that it needs to have a big diplomatic presence all over the world. What do we hope to gain from spending more and more money on more and more diplomatic missions abroad? Is it a vanity thing or is it because we have too many foreign ministry employees seeking an ambassadorial posting?

There is no rational political explanation for the opening of the embassy in Bahrain. And it is ludicrous to suggest that it was done to strengthen EU-Gulf ties. If EU member states want closer ties with Gulf states they would pursue these themselves. They do not need the Cyprus presidency to do it for them, nor do they need a Cyprus embassy in Bahrain to help them out. The government must consider that this complete lack of measure in the opening of diplomatic missions abroad is very costly and offers very little, if any, benefit to Cypriots.