The mobility of Latvian citizens has remained high over the past year, and Andris Pelšs, the State Secretary of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, pointed out today about the current affairs of the consular service.
He noted that the important day-to-day work of the Foreign Service is related to the provision of consular assistance to Latvian citizens who have arrived abroad in emergency situations.
According to Plesis, despite the travel restrictions caused by the Covid-19 pandemic, the mobility of Latvian citizens has remained high over the past year, as evidenced by two things. Firstly, it is the large number of requests received by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and, secondly, the amount of consular assistance provided to Latvian citizens abroad.
The State Secretary of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs points out that due to the rapidly changing situation in the world both in the context of the Covid-19 pandemic and the changes in the security situation over the past year, the Foreign Service has had to provide support to Latvian citizens in crisis areas. The causes of the crises have been linked to both the armed conflict and the spread of Covid-19 last year. Pelsch emphasized that the countries with the highest consular involvement are Afghanistan, Ethiopia, Morocco and Ukraine.
He emphasized that the role of the consular service is not only to provide assistance in emergencies, but also to inform travelers before the trip, and therefore the Ministry of Foreign Affairs regularly organizes information campaigns, but distributes “Travel Alerts” on a daily basis about certain countries and territories. whether special care is required.
“I want to call on the MFA’s Travel Alert to be taken into account as much as possible, because while we can be happy and proud of how we managed to help our citizens in crisis-affected areas, war-torn areas, at least some of that could have been prevented if they had been taken into account.” Travel warnings, “said the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs.
Plessi explained that in the case of Ukraine, before the start of the war, the consular service repeatedly sent messages at least to the customers of Latvian mobile operators who were in the area to be careful and try to evacuate, while this possibility was relatively simple and convenient.
The State Secretary of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs stated that the consular service provided all the necessary assistance in Lviv after that. The consular support function was launched in the early days of the war and was an important point of support for citizens of Ukraine.
Agnese Saliņa, Director of the Consular Department, noted that last year consular assistance was provided to Latvian missions abroad in almost 1,000 cases. It was diverse – for detainees, deaths, and hospitalization.
According to Saliņa, if we talk about the areas affected by the crisis, then 27 citizens were helped to get out of such places. Speaking about the number of return certificates, Saliņa pointed out that it has remained unchanged over the past years. Every year, about 1,000 return certificates are issued, which means that about 1,000 Latvian citizens abroad lose their documents or are stolen.
Turning to the dynamics of consular services, Saliņa explained that it has changed with the travel restrictions caused by the pandemic and the war in Ukraine. If two years ago the main service provided by Latvian missions abroad was the issuance of visas to foreigners, now various types of services are provided to compatriots residing abroad.
The director of the consular department pointed out that the number of services has almost doubled in the past year compared to 2020. If more than 62,000 services were provided in 2020, this number has already exceeded 100,000 last year.
“Currently, the most demanded service in our representations is the processing of identity documents. Last year, less than 30,000 documents were processed and issued in our representations abroad, which is also a big increase compared to 2020, when only 16,000 were processed. Indeed, the increase is significant. It must be said that this trend is still continuing, for example, in the first four months of this year we have already received more than 15,000, “said Saliņa.
She explained that for this reason, some representations abroad also face quite long queues for passports and identification cards. It should also be taken into account that Latvian missions abroad receive visitors by prior appointment, so the change of documents must be planned in advance and it must be taken into account that a visit to the embassy may have to be announced well in advance.
The Director of the Consular Department also touched upon the changes in the work of Latvia’s representations abroad, which are also related to the war caused by Russia in Ukraine, as two Latvian representations in Russia were closed this month – the Consulate General in St. Petersburg and the Consulate in Pskov. The Embassy in Moscow continues to operate and provides both consular services and consular assistance in full. All that is to be reckoned with is that the embassy in Moscow will now have to travel further.
According to Saliņa, the embassy in Moscow points out that there is currently an increase in work, which is related both to the closure of two representative offices and to the increased interest of Russian citizens in leaving Russia.
“Although the reception of visa applications is currently suspended indefinitely, except in humanitarian cases, the embassy is facing various requests, calls from interested parties, e-mails. For example, in March alone, around 2,000 e-mails were received with various questions. , “said the director of the Consular Department.
She also emphasized that last year there have been positive changes in the work of the Latvian embassies and that is the opening of the Latvian Embassy in Australia. Consular services and assistance are provided in full. Saliņa emphasized that this is good news for both Latvians and compatriots in Australia.
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