The Diplomat
Anamaria Almasan, Dean of the Consular Corps of Madrid, yesterday gave a conference entitled Challenges and consular experiences in times of pandemic, organised by the Corps of the Nobility of the Principality of Asturias and the Bances y Valdés Institute of Historical Studies at the Club Financiero Génova in Madrid.
Before the attentive audience of consuls from numerous countries, who attended the conference in person or virtually, Alfredo Leonard, Institutional Relations Advisor of the Corps of Nobility of the Principality of Asturias, outlined a brief biography of the Romanian diplomat as a presentation.
Anamaría Almasan stressed that “this year has seen the greatest world crisis since Roman times. In the first days of the pandemic, the telephone lines collapsed in all the consulates, especially hers, and thousands of e-mails arrived from people with problems and not knowing what to do”.
The dean of the Madrid Consular Corps underlined the role that her Consulate has played and continues to play, since the Romanian population is the largest of those residing in Spain. “4,800 applications to board the first flight to my country, with only 189 seats available. A quarter of all Romanian returnees in the world left Spain. There were 50,000 calls that were answered on the spot, and people in social exclusion were helped, as well as minors and Erasmus students.”
“The main thing,” Anamaría continued, “was the coordination and dialogue that from the beginning there was between the lines of consuls from the same country and between those from all over the world, who were in continuous contact with the Spanish Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Interior, so that we were all aware in real time of everything that was being done all the time. In a very difficult context, the pandemic has also brought out the best in us”.
