I can give you one "headline" that happened (I know because I was there):Directive/2004/38/EC wrote:...Imagine the headlines...
It was in Beirut/Lebanon in the Summer of 2006, when the last war between Lebanon and Israel started. The one and only (and hopefully last) time so far I needed consular protection.
"Western" countries organised an evacuation with Buses to Damascus.
Departure of all ~10 buses was scheduled some time in the morning, maybe 8 a.m. Everybody was RTG, except the Germans. They insisted that, according to the consular law of Germany, everybody had to pay a fee of EUR 50 per person, to make sure Germany will not incur costs since it´s everyone´s own fault to be in this situation.
The "show" that developed was unbelievable: There were families with several kids, prompting the Embassy Staff to demand 100s of Euros from them, on the spot. I will never forget one specific tourist who said "look, the house where we stayed was bombed yesterday. We were here for holidays - in Germany we have a house, jobs, bank account, money... Right now and here we have: Nothing. Simply because we ran out of the house which was about to collapse. So if you want money, we can give it to you in Germany. If needs be we can ring the bank together so you see..." (...you get the picture)
It went on and on... In the end (after several hours of everyone waiting!) staff of other embassies interfered and told them: Look - if you don´t want to leave right now, for bureaucratic reasons, that´s your problem. But the whole convoy is waiting for you, and we´ll go now. Finally they gave up and let everyone on board.
During the waiting time the "port of Beirut", which was just about 3 kilometres from our meeting point, was bombed. That was pretty loud and scary.
This doesn´t include the story of the catastrophic communication between the German authorities and its citizens that preceded the evacuation.
Ever since I prefer to use my Belgian passport for travel...
