German honorary consul at London embassy meet
GERMAN honorary consuls from the UK, Isle of Man and Channel Islands gathered at the German embassy in London for their first meeting in person since 2018.
Chris Betley was the Guernsey delegate and he said an attempt had been made at a Zoom meeting during the pandemic.
‘But nothing really approaches the opportunity to have a face-to-face conversation and get briefings from different people.’
The event was a very collaborative one and saw various presentations during the day, as well as work sessions which covered all aspects of consular activity.
Topics included passport preparation and applications and issues which German visitors might enquire about on a regular basis.
The German ambassador to the UK was among the attendees.
In light of progress towards Guernsey twinning with Biberach, Mr Betley said it was interesting that after many British-German town twinnings were made in the 1970s, the gathering was told of efforts to attempt to refresh these.
During a discussion of the issues faced post-Brexit by German people travelling in the UK, and UK residents going to Germany, Mr Betley said he spoke about changes being made to help French daytrippers come to Guernsey using just their national ID cards.
He said he described this as illustrating the principle of the relaxation of border controls.
‘Germans also have ID cards but I think it’s certainly far more common for German citizens to have passports,’ he said.
He said that at the last count there were about 250 German citizens living in Guernsey, but a lot of his dealings were with visitors requiring assistance, such as with lost passports.
