UK in Albania
Tirana 21:47, 16 May 2012
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Help for British Nationals
The Consulate is part of the British Embassy in Albania. Consular staff are here to look after the interests of British nationals, Commonwealth nationals and EU citizens who are not represented, visiting or living within the Consular District of Albania.
The Help for British Nationals page gives advice what help we can provide if you do get into difficulty. We offer help which is appropriate to the individual circumstances of each case, including:
- issuing replacement passports
- providing information about transferring funds
- providing appropriate help if you have suffered rape or serious assault, are a victim of other crime, or are in hospital
- helping people with mental illness
- providing details of local lawyers, interpreters and doctors and funeral directors
- doing all we properly can to contact you within 24 hours of being told that you have been detained
- offering support and help in a range of other cases, such as child abductions, death of relatives overseas, missing people and kidnapping;
- contacting family or friends for you if you want, and
- making special arrangements in cases of terrorism, civil disturbances or natural disasters.
We cannot...
- get you out of prison, prevent the local authorities from deporting you after your prison sentence, or interfere in criminal or civil court proceedings
- help you enter a country, for example, if you do not have a visa or your passport is not valid, as we cannot interfere in another country’s immigration policy or procedures
- give you legal advice, investigate crimes or carry out searches for missing people, although we can give you details of people who may be able to help you in these cases, such as English-speaking lawyers
- get you better treatment in hospital or prison than is given to local people
- pay any bills or give you money (in very exceptional circumstances we may lend you some money from public funds, which you will have to pay back)
- make travel arrangements for you, or find you work or accommodation, or
- make business arrangements on your behalf.
Dual Nationals are not entitled to consular assistance in the country of their other nationality or if they have travelled to a third country on another passport. However, we provide the following statutory services to all dual nationals:
- issue of passports or emergency passports
- notarial work.
Commonwealth Nationals may be entitled to consular assistance where they do not have any diplomatic or consular representation, depending on the circumstances of the case.
EU Nationals are entitled to consular assistance if they have no permanent representation and other local arrangements for representing the interests of EU nationals do not exist.
If you are a British national in need of emergency assistance, or calling about a British national involved in an emergency, out of hours, please call the Global Response Centre in London on 00355 4 2229071. Our Global Response team provide emergency assistance only and cannot answer routine passport questions or any visa enquiries. Your call will be charged at local call rates and may be recorded for monitoring and training purposes.
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