Head of Department of Information — Press Secretary of the Foreign Ministry Andrei Savinykh Responds to a Question of the Polish Radio on the Polish Proposal to Increase the Number of Employees at the Polish Consular Service

24/05/2012

Polskie Radio: How can you comment the proposal of the Polish side to increase the number of employees of at the Polish Consular Service?

A.Savinykh: The Polish side has earlier made such a proposal during  the working contacts.

We do not see this as a unique solution. Polish side has 26 consular officers at the territory of Belarus. Belarus has 12 consuls in Poland. Visa load per employee is quite comparable. However there are no waiting lists in the Belarusian missions and the time needed to obtain a visa is incomparably shorter.

We are convinced that the problem may be solved by a more rational organization of work, and, i.a. by liberating consular officers from the functions they are not supposed to perform.

We are not limiting the number of the administrative personal employed locally for supporting this process.