Activities. The embassy abroad or foreign mission, is headed by an ambassador assisted by a career diplomat, who serves as deputy or first secretary

Organization

Foreign Missions

The embassy abroad or foreign mission, is headed by an ambassador assisted by a career diplomat, who serves as deputy or first secretary. The deputy secretary overseas and coordinates the work of the staff and assumes the responsibilities of the mission as chargé d’affaires whenever the ambassador is away or incapacitated or is between ambassadorial assignments.

A mission is organized into series of functional sections that observe, report, and deal with issues in their respective areas. Most missions contain sections for political affairs, economic and commercial affairs, information and cultural affairs, consular affairs, and administrative matters. In addition, a mission usually includes a number of attachés from other government departments. Military, air, and naval attachés have traditionally been assigned to foreign missions, but agricultural, commercial, labor, and cultural attachés are becoming increasingly common.

Missions are staffed largely by foreign service officers, with the exception of the attachés who are drawn from their respective agencies back home. The secretaries and clerical staff come from a separate civil service corps. Citizens of the host country may be hired as translators.

The activities of a diplomatic mission are extremely varied. They range from such serious tasks as negotiating issues of great political significance and reporting and commenting on important events in the foreign country to meeting with foreign students, arranging itineraries of exhibits about life in the home country, and issuing visas.

In addition to their diplomatic and political chores, missions are also in charge of the consular work of the home government. Consular operations are concerned with the economic and commercial relations between nations. Originally, diplomatic and consular chores were kept strictly separate because early theorists felt that national interests should not be “tainted” by private commercial matters. Thus, two separate services- diplomatic and consular -usually existed. Today all major countries have combined these two services, and a single corps of professional civil servants serves in both areas.

Consular work involves a variety of activities. Consuls issue birth, death and marriage certificates to citizens residing or traveling in the foreign country. Consular officers also regulate shipping, and their country’s citizens when they travel on business or as tourists, and report on economic and business conditions abroad. Activities are often carried out in consulates located in major trading and commercial cities as well as in the capital city.

Answer the questions:

1. Who is the embassy abroad headed by?

2. What does the deputy secretary do?

3. How is a mission organized?

4. What is special about the military, air, naval, agricultural, labor and cultural

attachés?

5. Who are the missions staffed largely by?

6. What are the activities of a diplomatic mission?

7. What are consular operations concerned with?

8. What activities does the consular work involve?

Дата добавления: 2014-12-27