Diplomats reiterate to Albares that growing consular demand requires more resources “urgently”

Eduardo González The Association of Spanish Diplomats (ADE) warned this Monday, in response to the 2024 Consular Balance presented last Tuesday by the Minister of Foreign Affairs, José Manuel Albares, that the “incessant increase in demand for consular services” is occurring with “increasingly precarious human and material resources” and, therefore, “urgently requires more resources to address this situation.” The ADE statement recalls that, as of January 1, 2025, 3.045 million Spanish citizens resided abroad, 137,000 (4.7%) more than on the same date last year, an increase that “translates into an automatic increase in the services demanded.” To give just two examples from the Balance Sheet, according to the ADE, in 2024, Spanish consular offices issued 402,882 passports (a 3.6% increase compared to 2023) and registered 199,404 consular civil registries (27% more than in 2023). Furthermore, the report continued, services provided to foreign citizens also grew steadily, as consular offices processed 1,796,533 visas last year (11.6% more than in 2023). "As the ADE has been advocating since the publication of its report on the situation of the consular network in January 2024, more resources are urgently needed to address this situation, which will worsen radically with the impact of the Democratic Memory Law, which will likely increase the number of Spaniards living abroad from the current three million to nearly four million," the association warns. Consular Digitalization: useful but "in the worst-case scenario" Regarding the digitalization of the consular service, to which, according to the Balance Sheet, the Government has allocated 115 million euros, the ADE recognizes that the digital Civil Registry (DICIREG) and the Consular Digitalization Plan ("the precise content of which remains unknown") will, in the future, be "useful tools to improve service to citizens." However, it warns, "these new systems—which require extensive training and additional tasks to move from paper to digital (digitalization, cancellation of registry entries, etc.)—are being implemented in the worst-case scenario, marked by work overload and a lack of staff." "Therefore, the implementation of a consular digitalization process does not eliminate the urgent need for a substantial increase in consular staff (which must be done with permanent personnel, abandoning the systematic use of temporary contracts, which in many consulates exceed 50% of staff), in addition to the necessary improvement of working conditions and, in some cases, salaries of locally contracted local staff (PLEX), and the considerable investment required in real estate, much of which is in a lamentable state, as the ADE highlighted in its statement of March 21," the new consulate continues. New consulates and new positions: "Welcome, but very insufficient" On the other hand, the Balance Sheet (as Albares himself explained last Tuesday at the press conference following the Council of Ministers) reported the creation of three attached consulates in the Consulates of Havana, Buenos Aires, and Mexico, "which are in particular demand," and the future opening of new Consulates General, "as already exist in the United Kingdom and China and are imminent in Cuba and India." The Balance Sheet also includes the creation of 150 new positions for consulates and consular services. In this regard, the ADE warns that both decisions "are welcome," but "are very insufficient to address the underlying problems of the consular network." “Most Consulates General should have an assistant consul (since one only exists in a small number of our 86 Consulates General), and the 150 staff reinforcement positions are temporary and, as the Balance Sheet indicates, are mostly linked to the processing of the Democratic Memory Law,” he continues. On the other hand, it adds, “it is worth remembering that the opening of the new consulates mentioned in the Balance Sheet (Manchester in 2019, Chengdu in 2020, and those planned in Camagüey and Bangalore) has been offset by the closure of several other consular offices (Cartagena de Indias, Alexandria, Genoa, and probably one more in Europe), so there has been no net increase in consular offices.” “This situation is due to the fact that the Ministry of Finance continues to impose a 'zero-cost' policy: it only allows the opening of offices or the creation of new positions if, in exchange, others are closed or eliminated, so as not to increase expenditure. This decision is unsustainable from the perspective of providing the quality public service demanded by citizens,” laments the ADE. Consular emergencies The ADE also calls on the Ministry of Foreign Affairs to implement, “as soon as possible,” “a more modern, efficient, and centralized mechanism for responding to individual consular emergencies, similar to the one already in place in other countries” by establishing “a single consular emergency number (instead of one for each consular office) that would be handled by the central services in Madrid, where inquiries that are not truly emergencies but merely informational could be answered, and calls that do require the direct intervention of an office on the ground could be immediately forwarded to the consular network.” Consequently, the ADE urges an assessment of the structural needs for human and material resources within the consular network, taking into account the existing deficits and the 33% increase in registered personnel linked to the Democratic Memory Law. Likewise, it reiterates its call, in compliance with the 2014 Law on State Action and Foreign Service, for the Executive Council on Foreign Policy to urgently prepare a report on the adequacy of the deployment and structure of diplomatic missions, permanent representations, and consular offices. This report, as provided in the Third Additional Provision of the aforementioned Law, "must reflect the status of the real estate and material and personnel resources." "This analysis, which is an unfulfilled legal mandate, is essential to maximize the efficiency in the use of scarce available resources and to identify the need for additional resources where objectively necessary," the statement concludes.

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