Union des Consuls à Rotterdam et La Haye

Union des Consuls à Rotterdam, founded on Avril 25, 1906 is one of the oldest, if not the oldest consul’s association in the Netherlands. In 2019 the association unified with the sister association, Union des Consuls La Haye, to consolidate the good cooperation between the two associations and to respond to the actual strategies of local government to more regional cooperation.

Approximately 160 honorary consuls are active in the Netherlands, 70 of which are members of our association, representing over 40 countries.

Consular functions consist mainly in protecting, in the receiving State the interests of the sending State and of its nationals, both individuals and bodies corporate, and furthering the development of commercial, economic, cultural and scientific relations between the sending State and the receiving State and otherwise promoting friendly relations between them. Article 5 of the 1963 Vienna Convention on Consular Relations gives a full enumeration of a consul’s tasks.

Aside from those outlined in the Vienna Convention on Consular Relations, there are few formal requirements outlining what a consular official must do. For example, for some countries, consular officials may be responsible for the issuance of visas; other countries may limit “consular services” to providing assistance to compatriots, legalization of documents, etc.

The seat, classification and the consular district of a consular post are established by the sending State and subject to the approval of the receiving State. The consular functions are referred to in Article 5 of the Vienna Convention . The head of the consular post is provided by the sending State with a notification of appointment containing his capacity and his class as well as the consular district and the seat of the consular post.

Generally, the notification of appointment shall include the functions which will and will not be exercised by the consul and the consular post. If there is a permanent diplomatic mission of the sending State in the receiving State, consular tasks shall be exercised mainly by this mission and tasks of protocol might be relevant during official events in the consular district.

A consul, career consul is an official representative of the government of one state in the territory of another.

The honorary consuls are not official foreign service personnel but tend to be expatriates and business people who have ties or other connections with the recipient country. Or they can be local people designated by a foreign govt to represent their interests in a foreign city or sometimes country.  The honorary consuls are not payed for their consular work. The majority of honorary consuls accredited to the Netherlands have functions by reason of trade facilitating and business development, or in the field of cultural and scientific cooperation, in the consular district they have been appointed, that is usually limited to one or several provinces.