Poles and Swedes in “kot” in Algiers
(BRUSSELS2) Poland and Sweden have decided to share premises for their embassy in Algiers. Objective: to halve the costs, according to a Swedish diplomat. It is not only the premises that are in fact shared. Some services are also concerned: reception, kitchen, canteen, maintenance, parking, garden... and security! It is thus Polish military police who guard the diplomatic premises in Algiers. This "pooling" is not limited to logistical aspects. It is Poland that represents Sweden on the spot for visa applications, a sort of consular "pooling and sharing" therefore, which could make small ones. Poland has been planning for several years to develop this type of initiative, in particular within the framework of the Visegrad group (Poland, Czech Republic, Slovakia and Hungary).
There are other examples of this kind of diplomatic cooperation between European countries: that of the Nordic Embassies (in fact a joint embassy of the five Nordic countries in Berlin), between Germany and the United Kingdom in Kazakhstan, France and the Germany to Malawi, Sweden and Estonia to Cairo, etc. But it's usually just about sharing premises. The budgetary crisis which affects all European budgets should multiply this type of initiative, either bilaterally or multilaterally. Even if the development of consular functions within the embassies / delegations of the European Union remains, for the moment, blocked.
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