I only ever hear about them when there is a problem. Curious what happens on normal days?
In: Other
Embassies most often provide a full range of consular services. This includes support for their citizens living or traveling in the host country, for instance replacing a passport, legal assistance, voting in upcoming elections, emergency assistance, etc. They also can handle visa applications for people wishing to travel to their home country. Politically, they also work to try to avoid those aforementioned problems. They may hold meetings with leaders of the host country if they feel a situation warrants it (for example, a proposed law that might negatively affect their country’s interests). And some may be involved in intelligence gathering (which certainly can create some of those aforementioned problems).
Lots of things for regular people. For people wanting to go to a particular country, they can get all the documents they need to travel at the embassy. They do stuff like making the documents taking the photos, doing the back ground checks. The citizens of that country also find use if they get into trouble, be it minor or major. Like if they lost their passport, they’d go to their country’s embassy for help. Or if they got accused of a crime their embassy might help them with the legal stuff.
For diplomatic people, the embassy handles how countries deal with each other. For every big trade agreement and/or military alliance, there’s often months of embassy people talking it out. Someone has to figure out who exactly pays for this specific thing, what time everything happens and where, if cereal counts as a soup for import tax purposes and a bajillion other really mundane and trivial things.
Latest Answers