Brussels, 14/12/2011 (Agence Europe) - As announced in March of this year in a communication, the European Commission on Wednesday 14 December presented a proposed directive to reinforce the rights to consular protection of European citizens finding themselves in crisis situations abroad, such as those which occurred in 2001 in Japan, Libya and Egypt, but who were caught off-guard due to a lack of consular representation of their country of origin. The aim of Commissioner Viviane Reding is to make sure that all member states respect their obligations (reiterated in the Charter of Fundamental Rights) to come to the assistance, abroad, of all European nationals, irrespective of their country of origin, and not to discriminate against anybody in evacuation exercises, for instance.
In the proposed directive, the Commission also proposes to the member states a system for the reimbursement of costs borne by an embassy or consulate (the member state providing its assistance being obliged to send a request for reimbursement to the foreign affairs ministers of the countries in question), the Commission proposing, for example in crisis situations, a calculation method guaranteeing that the states will be reimbursed in all cases.
The Commission's legislative proposal also aims to clarify the notion of unrepresented citizen, thus allowing them to take care of that person abroad. The directive clarifies, the Commission explains, that citizens of the Union are considered unrepresented “when an embassy or consulate of their own member state is not 'accessible', meaning that they cannot reach it and return to where they started at least the same day”. The proposal also focuses on the conditions under which the family members of an EU citizen originating from a third country may also benefit from consular protection in coordination with the citizen's member country of origin. The text also lays down the details of a 'lead' member state, which will head up the systems operations and manage how the other member states concerned by the operations can assist it.
In 2011, nearly 150,000 European nationals received consular protection in Libya, Egypt and Japan, the Commission reports. In 2009, the member states' consuls provided consular protection in 300,000 cases. Every year, some 5,120,000 EU citizens travel to third countries in which their member state of origin has no representation and 1,740,000 EU citizens live in such countries, the Commission continues. (SP/transl.fl)