He said the honorary consulate’s new facilities will be “more modern and more comfortable with better accessibility for people with mobility difficulties,” in addition to its central location in St. Louis. Heller.
The space lease should be formalized in the coming days, followed by the HVAC work, but Cavufu is confident that “we will have better facilities and better conditions as a matter of fact this year”.
In addition to the new space, the honorary consulate will start working with extended hours and with new powers, such as issuing citizen cards and passports thanks to the permanent placement of an employee at the Consulate General in London.
Until now, thousands of Portuguese residents of the island of Jersey, located in the English Channel, off France, had to fly to the Consulate General in London or Portugal, or wait for a consular presence, to issue or renew their identity and travel documents.
This “new phase of the Portuguese State’s services to Jersey” would also benefit the neighboring island of Guernsey, although the Secretary of State wished to maintain occasional trips by consular officials to offer assistance.
Paulo Cavufu recognized that the investment in the Honorary Consulate of Jersey is also a response to the increase in citizenship and document applications by people of Portuguese descent since the UK left the European Union.
Although they have separate and independent administrations from the United Kingdom, Jersey and Guernsey are both subject to the British Crown and affected by ‘Brexit’, i.e. the end of freedom of movement between the islands and the European Union.
The program of the trip on Friday and Saturday to the two islands included visits to companies led by Portuguese and Portuguese descendants, bilateral meetings with local authorities and meetings with trade union organizations, businessmen and members of the Portuguese community.
On Friday, Cavufu held a ceremony in Jersey to hand out “tablets” within the scope of the Digitization Program for Portuguese Language Education Abroad, which took the opportunity to sensitize young people to more political and civic participation.
“It is very important that this community of ours, which represents about 10% of the population of Jersey, can participate, in addition to the influence it already has in various sectors of the economy, in proportion to its proportion to the population residing here,” the foreign minister stressed.
Jersey currently has two local MPs of Portuguese descent, Beatriz Borré and Karina Alves.
Statistical data indicates that the approximately 9,000 Portuguese citizens on the island of Jersey represent 8% of the total population of the island, while in Guernsey, approximately 1,700 Portuguese citizens have residence status.
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