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Published29. January 2024, 09:03
Geneva: The Consulate General of Italy: “It’s hell”
Inaccessible services, long waiting times, high levels of bureaucracy: Italians in the Lake Geneva region are afraid to contact their diplomatic mission.
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The General Consulate of Italy in Geneva.
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Francesco’s mother received an unexpected gift before Christmas: an appointment at the Italian consulate in Geneva. Her son, a dual citizen and resident of Vaud, fought for nine months to renew his mother’s ID card, which was due to expire in December. The smallest step, even the most routine one, would therefore involve “staggering” waiting times.
In addition, it is “completely impossible to make contact with a person” within the transalpine representation, complains the 30-year-old. He criticizes a “dehumanized” service that has met with considerable criticism from Italians in the cantons of Geneva, Vaud and Valais and is attached to the consulate at the end of the lake. “It’s hell!” sums up one of them. There is also great dissatisfaction on the German-speaking side, 20minuten recently found.
You have to be lucky
Everything involves registering on a digital platform, one day a month. “Sometimes I found myself at 12:01 a.m. with multiple windows open on my computer trying to schedule an appointment. It’s harder than getting a ticket to Paléo,” explains Francesco. You have to be lucky, confirms Giuseppe. “And once the invitation is planned, you shouldn’t miss it! Otherwise you’re screwed, it’ll take months.” The 50-year-old from Geneva nostalgically remembers the days before – the days without a digital platform: “We went to the consulate, it took maybe all day, but in the evening you got something at least what you wanted.” .”
Giovanni, another Italian from Geneva, speaks of a “catastrophic” organization. Appointments that have been agreed upon are regularly (far from) kept. That’s not all: “The consulate issues a list of the documents to bring with you, but in the end there is always one missing that wasn’t mentioned.” Carmine, who comes from Valais, puts the criticism into perspective. “It’s a bit complicated, it takes time, but in the end it always works,” assures the forty-year-old. Unlike some of his compatriots, he believes that “there was a lot more chaos before.” An elderly couple recalls a “charming” reception at diplomatic headquarters.
Consulates under pressure
The Italian Embassy in Switzerland ensures that the Transalpine Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Cooperation works to improve consular services. “The dissatisfaction of our compatriots is a reality,” acknowledged Ambassador Gian Lorenzo Cornado and “apologized.” This underlines that our country hosts the fourth largest Italian community abroad. With more than 656,000 transalpine residents in 2023, “each operator manages more than 7,000 users (…), which represents enormous and constant pressure on our consulates.”
In view of the criticism, the diplomatic mission in Geneva will make changes, according to the Italian embassy in Switzerland. While two counters were set up in Lausanne (VD) and Sion (VS) last year, the consulate plans to open “soon” at the end of the session lake for two hours, on Thursday after noon. Finally in the digital cold that many locals denounce: a little human warmth. The consular service announces that “a person is already assigned to answer the telephone switchboard every morning from 9:00 a.m. to 1:00 p.m.” and that from next month “officials will answer the telephone directly from 1:30 p.m. to 3:30 p.m.”
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