BRITAIN is to downgrade or turn over to local staff dozens of consulates in Europe, Africa and Latin America to pay for new embassies and diplomatic outposts in Iraq, Libya, Afghanistan and other crisis areas.

The biggest shake-up of the Diplomatic Service for years could affect posts in all continents and is intended to save more than £100 million. Much of the money will be needed to pay for Britain’s six-month presidency of the Group of Eight (G8) industrial nations, which begins next month, and of the European Union in the second half of the year.

British diplomats will be withdrawn from almost a dozen consulates in France, Germany and continental Europe. Most will be kept open, staffed by local employees or retired diplomats living in the area. In Latin America, the Pacific and possibly elsewhere, some embassies will be closed altogether with representation provided instead from regional centres.

British tourists may protest at the closures but the Foreign Office insists that adequate cover can be provided from other locations. Jack Straw will tell the House of Commons today that the changes reflect Britain’s changing strategic priorities. There is little need for consulates in the EU to play a political or representational role, and trade promotion can be handled by local staff with business connections.

But the Foreign Secretary will outline the need for new embassies and consulates in Central Asia, the Middle East and countries where Britain is looking for markets and influence. The Foreign and Commonwealth Office costs £1.15 billion a year to run and the Treasury is demanding cuts to a budget hugely stretched in recent years by the demands of diplomacy in war zones and the need for extra security.

In some European countries there are consulates in almost every big city. In France, as well as regional centres and at the Channel ports, there is a British presence in Biarritz, Amiens, Lille, Montpellier and Toulouse. In Germany there are nine (all in former West Germany) and in Italy eleven.

Much time is spent helping Britons who get into trouble — losing passports, suffering bereavement or being arrested. The Government argues that such services are costly and, within the EU, often unnecessary. In Latin America and Africa, consulates will concentrate on trade and be run on a “hub and spoke” system, supervised from regional embassies.

The changes have been forced partly by rising costs and partly because the relatively small pool of diplomats must be deployed in countries more critical to Britain’s world role.

Sir Michael Jay, the Permanent Secretary at the Foreign Office, told officials in a recent internal memo that the chan-ges would bring uncertainty and, for some diplomats, “difficulties and pain”. The cost of protecting missions in Muslim and Third World countries has also risen sharply. The Treasury added £50 million to the Foreign Office budget this year to cover the extra security, but the need to rebuild or relocate embassies for added protection will be a burden for years.

More than a dozen posts have opened in the past five years, including embassies in Libya and East Timor and another in Asmara after Eritrea’s breakaway from Ethiopia, as well as a post in Pristina after the Kosovo war. In 2001, Britain established its first embassy in North Korea and in Tajikistan, the Kabul embassy was re-opened and missions were set up in Lahore and Bamako, Mali. In 2002 an embassy was opened in Moldova and the Sierra Leone crisis brought the need for a diplomatic presence in neighbouring Guinea.

The most recent, and some of the most expensive, openings have been the embassy in Baghdad, relocated into the green zone, and consulates in Mosul and Basra.

Furious opposition greeted the last attempt to close British consulates in Europe a decade ago, when a campaign was mounted to keep a diplomatic presence in Venice and Florence. Venice was eventually downgraded.

Today’s announcement is the first diplomatic redeployment linked to a review of international priorities published by the Foreign Office a year ago.

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