The Diplomat
The Ministry of Foreign Affairs has created its first Honorary Consular Office in Cayenne, capital of French Guiana, the largest overseas department of France and an outermost region of the European Union located between Brazil and Suriname.
According to the Order of last May 12 by which the Honorary Consulate of Spain in Cayenne was created, published last Saturday by the Official State Gazette (BOE), French Guiana, with a territorial extension of 83,846 square kilometers, with more than ten islands in the open sea and with 287,355 inhabitants, “requires an Honorary Consular Office to provide support to the Embassy of Spain in France, which until now has never had an Honorary Consulate of Spain in the said French department”.
The Honorary Consular Office will be attached to the Consulate General of Spain in Paris and its holder will have the status of Honorary Consul, in accordance with the Vienna Convention on Consular Relations. Among the French outermost regions, Spain currently has an Honorary Consulate in Martinique and two Honorary Vice-Consulates in Reunion Island and Papeete, which join the several existing Honorary Consulates and Vice-Consulates in mainland France (La Rochelle, Besançon, Rennes, Lille, Grenoble, Dijon, Nice, Toulon and Le Havre) and the Honorary Consulate in Monaco.
According to the Ministerial Order, the Spanish population is almost entirely concentrated between Cayenne – the capital of the department, main city and first port of French Guiana – and the spatial center of Kourou, some 60 kilometers from the capital, and it is therefore most convenient to locate the seat of the Honorary Consulate in Cayenne.
The objective of the creation of the Honorary Consular Office in Cayenne “responds to the importance of continuing to adapt the Spanish consular network to provide the necessary attention to urgent cases of consular protection and assistance and, in particular, to expand the presence of the Consulate General of Spain in Paris in the French overseas territories,” the Order continues. “It is also intended to mitigate the difficulties arising due to the physical remoteness of any other Spanish Consular Office, promoting the development of political, institutional, cultural and economic relations in that territory”, it adds.
The creation of the Honorary Consular Post “will not entail any increase in personnel expenses” and its operation “will be attended with the material and personal means currently available to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, European Union and Cooperation”, it concludes.
