Went
to renew our Dutch passports this morning.
This
requires quite some coordination, as Dutch law stipulates that both parents
sign off on the passport of a minor. Try and get my family in one place at the
same time at 8:30 in the morning. But I succeeded. Three high tech passports
(they work with fingerprints these days)
for 173,000 LBP each, valid for 5 years, and which will guarantee us access to
just about any country in the world, and allow me to live and work in any of
the 26 Schengen countries; We feature #3 on the Henley & Partners Visa Restriction Index!
As
coincidence has it, I also have to renew our Lebanese passports next Saturday. I
am not looking forward to that exercise. Any dealings with Lebanese government
institutions are nerve-wrecking operations.
Yet
this Lebanese passport requires a lot more money; 300,000, instead of 173,000. The
lady at the Dutch embassy was quite surprised at the price, since the Lebanese
passport isn’t that advanced; they still do not work with biometric passports, even though it was in
the planning (well, what else is
new, I hear you say?).
So
what do you get for the extra 126,000 LBP, you ask?
Only the inhabitants of these countries (Sri Lanka, Sudan, Nepal, Eritrea, Palestinian
Territory, Pakistan, Somalia, Iraq and Afghanistan) enjoy a ‘lesser freedom
of travel’, according to the Henley & Partners Visa Restriction Index than we do.
You
don’t say.
I should not complain; I have a
legal document to get out if need be, and on top of that, I have the financial
means to do so. Hundreds of thousands of Lebanese, Syrians and Palestinians
would die for a document like that, to go to a place that guarantees them to
very basic necessities of life; a safe place to live, a decent education for
their kids and food on the table.
3 comments:
I have not renewed my Lebanese passport for many years.
You have a Dutch passport Why do you need a Lebanese one save your money .
Sometimes, you don't want the customs officials in one place to know that you've been somewhere else. It's not that you've done anything wrong, it's just that there can be bad relationships between two countries, and you don't want them to take it out on you. This is especially applicable / useful to people who travel a lot... for example, a journalist.
Us visa renewal after 10 yearsGet Your visa renewal done in less than 3 hours from the time you make your embassy payment.us visitor visa renewal payment after processing your application. we deal with american USA visa renewal services in India mainly in Hyderabad Delhi Mumbai Chennai kolkata.
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