Premium
Romania's Consulates General in London and Paris will start operating in August this year, as part of the consular reform launched in 2020, Foreign Affairs Minister Bogdan Aurescu declared on Wednesday in the government meeting.
"We focused on the resizing and modernization of Romania's consular network and steps were taken to open new consular offices in Chisinau, Madrid, Rome, London, Paris, Salzburg, Belfast, Nantes, Valencia and Ismail. This year, the Consulates General in Chisinau, Madrid and Rome started operating. The Consulate in Melbourne was also operationalized last year, and the Consulates General in London and in Paris will follow this August. Also, the Consulate General in Nantes, the consular office in Belfast, and the Consulate General in Salzburg will become operational by the end of the year," said Bogdan Aurescu.
Speaking about the activity of mobile consulates, the Romanian top diplomat declared that year-to-date, they have provided 21,502 consular services.
"Because, as we well know, the main problems are related to the grant of work visas, a traveling consular mission was organized in Dhaka - Bangladesh between April and July, which has already succeeded in issuing more than 5,400 work visas. And we are preparing a similar mission in Nepal, because Bangladesh, Nepal, India are the most important sources of foreign labor force," said Aurescu.
Also, the Foreign Ministry has taken red-tape cutting steps to simplify the scheduling procedures and optimize flows, so that if the law allows, everything be settled in just one visit to the consulate.
"The working hours with the public have been extended, documents have been sent by mail and we are expanding this service. (...) As part of the digital move, we have interconnected our computer systems with other institutions, such as the Ministry of the Interior, the Ministry of Justice and others, and we have also taken measures to modernize the call center, which provides the interface with applicants, by modernizing the answering machine and increasing the number of operators," Aurescu added. AGERPRES
