THE RIGHT OF A POLISH CITIZEN TO EU CONSULAR PROTECTION
THE RIGHT OF A POLISH CITIZEN TO EU CONSULAR PROTECTION

Summary/Abstract: This article is about the issue of EU consular protection over a Polish citizenduring a stay abroad. This problem is now regulated by art. 20 and 23 of the Treaty onthe Functioning of the EU. According to art. 23 of the Treaty “every citizen of theUnion benefits on the territory of a third country where the Member State of which he isa national, he has no representation, no diplomatic and consular protection of each ofthe other Member States under the same conditions as nationals of that State. MemberStates shall adopt the necessary provisions and enter into the international negotiationsrequired to ensure this protection”. The care offered by consulates usually includeshelp in cases of death, assistance in cases of serious accident or illness, assistance inthe event of arrest or detention, assistance to victims of violence or assistance inreturning to the country to citizens deprived of financial resources. The exercise ofconsular protection over the citizens of the sending State is the core of consularfunctions, hence, it is so important to provide it even in a situation where the sendingState does not have a consular representation in a given country. The topic raised in thearticle concerns an important problem of the implementation not only of art. 23 of theTreaty on the functioning of the EU, but also art. 36 of the Constitution of the Republicof Poland. Currently, the catalog of activities undertaken within the framework ofbroadly understood consular protection is still growing. Over the years, with theincrease in the wealth of societies, citizens are increasingly traveling, and travels arenot limited only to countries neighboring their country of origin, but they are heading inthe directions of the most distant and exotic corners of the world. Consuls are expectedto intervene in all the problems faced by citizens staying outside the country. The legalprovisions applicable in the host country have a large impact on the scope of theconsul's tasks, international regulations, regulations resulting from bilateral andmultilateral agreements, but also realities and conditions, culture, geographic locationsof the consul's state of operation.

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