Reino Unido. Discute-se estratégia consular

O Foreign Office, pela primeira vez, convoca amanhã em Londres os cônsules britânicos de uma área do globo (neste caso, os da Europa) para «discutirem a estratégia», estratégia consular, obviamente. Não sabemos se o embaixador Andersen Guimarães informou mas deve ter informado. Se não informou, diga a SEXA que tememos pelo nosso futuro na carreira, pois são conhecidos os métodos da Casa - restar-nos-à exercer esssa actividade baixa e suja que é o jornalismo. A propósito, comenta-se no Foreign Office que o site da embaixada de Portugal em Londres ou é uma ficção ou não existe, embora o endereço se mantenha na lista oficial britânica e não conste na lista oficial das Necessidades. Há site ou não há site, nesta época da «sociedade do conhecimento» como Sócrates ensinava outrora aos seus Platõezinhos? A rainha, aqui em Londres, está muito incomodada pelo facto dos portugueses não conseguirem pelo menos manter um site.

Arquive-se.

Segue a informação do Foreign Office e notas finais:

BRITISH CONSULS GET STRATEGIC (01/02/06)

British consuls from around Europe will meet in London tomorrow (2 February) to discuss how to respond to record demand for support from British nationals across the continent.

British travellers are making the most of cheap breaks offered by low-cost airlines and of the opening up of the continent since new members joined the EU in 2004 – whether for a romantic weekend in Paris or Rome or a lads' night out in Tallin or Prague. And record numbers are moving to the continent in search of a change of lifestyle and a place in the sun.

Most have a safe and enjoyable stay – but the record number of travellers mean British Embassy staff face ever-growing demand for support when things do go wrong. Embassy guards in Prague often have to ring round the city's hotels to find out where stag-night participants should be staying, after partygoers turn up dazed and confused at the Embassy gates in the small hours of the morning. British consulates across Spain are supporting an increasing number of elderly people who retired there as sprightly 60 year-olds but may now need help finding care or dealing with medical problems. British Embassy staff across Germany are gearing up to help the estimated 200,000 supporters set to travel to the World Cup in Germany later this year, with mobile consular teams deploying to every England game all the way to the final. Other long-term challenges for the FCO's consular network include preparing to issue new biometric passports overseas, many to British residents in Europe. Dealing with these and other challenges will be high on the agenda of today's meeting.

Lord Triesman, Foreign Office Minister responsible for consular work, said:

'The support which we offer British nationals in trouble abroad is among the very best in the world, and we're working hard to keep it that way. Today's meeting will give our teams from across Europe the chance to exchange ideas on how we can work even more efficiently and innovatively, and constantly improve the professionalism of our staff, in the face of challenges such as rising demand, changing attitudes to risk and personal responsibility, and future trends such as ageing British populations overseas. We're determined to stay ahead of the game.'

Notes

1 British nationals now make 65 million overseas trips a year – three times the figure of the mid-1980s. Over three quarters of these trips are to Europe, with Spain and France each getting an estimated 15 million visits.
2 - We estimate that 1 million British nationals now live in Spain, and hundreds of thousands in France.
3 - 27% of all British passports issued are used only for travel to Spain.
4 - The 1,800 FCO consular staff around the world deal with 3.5 million enquiries, 6,000 detentions, 4,000 deaths and a similar number of hospitalisations, and issue almost 500,000 passports every year.
5 - The posts of Consul-General in Majorca and Marseille, formerly filled by diplomats, are now locally-employed – saving the FCO thousands of pounds a year.
6 - FCO research shows that one in four people who go on a stag night abroad get into some kind of trouble – whether losing money and tickets, needing medical treatment after fights, or worse. 7 - Support for British nationals in difficulty abroad is funded entirely through a consular premium of £9.65 included in the price of every 10-year adult passport issued – less than £1 per year.
8 - This conference is the first ever regional consular strategy conference – the FCO hopes to hold more if it proves successful.