The Increasing of the Capacity of Employees at the Consular Relations Directorate with the Foreign Ministry and the Bulgarian Consulates, funded by the External Borders Fund of the EU under the 2013 annual work programme is now over. The goal was to be increased the capacity of the consular officers at the implementation of the EU common visa policy and the Schengen legislation in the visa issuing area. The chief of Consular Relations Directorate of the Foreign Ministry Rakovski Lashev pointed out that 45 employees had completed that first of its kind training, 35 of those sent for a long term to our diplomatic missions in third countries.

“According to the EU accession Treaty of Bulgaria, this country has started to implement the common visa policy of the EU as of the beginning of its full membership on 1 January 2007. Our consuls and consular officers go through specialized training, organized by the diplomatic institute of the foreign ministry before being sent abroad for the long term. Despite all this and taking into consideration the topicality of our immediate preparation for a Schengen entry, we put efforts in the conducting of special training classes for increasing the capacity of our employees on the eve of the Schengen accession. Two of the modules were theoretical and our officers had the chance to get deeply acquainted with the EU legislation, with the Schengen requirements and more specifically – with the latest amendments that are essential for their work. The practical lessons, related to the National Visa Information System and the operating with mobile consular stations were a really important moment within their preparation.”

The project’s implementation was won by Kavangard Ltd. According to CEO of Programs and Projects Radostina Petrova their contribution is the providing of the best lecturers for the explanation of the dynamic Schengen legislation.

“The practical experience of our experts contributed to the expansion of the participants’ knowledge, regarding the identification of forged documents, which is extremely important for working within the Schengen environment”, she said.

“This is particularly important,” Rakovski Lashev went on to say. “There are numerous attempts of foreign citizens to receive Bulgarian visas with forged documents. Modern technologies allow such documents to be created at a really impressive technological level, seriously approaching the outlook and protection of the authentic documents. This preparation is particularly important for our consuls. Their skills and the sustainable knowledge built up in the field will help them perform their duties even better.”

The project also updated and checked the competences of the participants.

“Each training module starts with an entry test, in order for the level of knowledge to be determined,” Radostina Petrova said. “Thus certain subjects can be accentuated on, related to the theoretical part or the practical classes which are interesting and important. An exit test is held in the end of the course, in order to check what’s been learnt. All the participants showed great results at both tests. I would like to add that the consuls’ coping with critical situations across the different stages of the visa issuing procedure was a part of the training. This is essential and topical subjectand I hope that all participants in the training will implement their new skills successfully from now on.”

Rakovski Lashev expressed the content of his colleagues, regarding the training and voiced to our reporter the hope that such trainings would be ongoing, on order for the greater part of consuls and consular officers with the foreign ministry to be seized.

English version: Zhivko Stanchev