"There are few cities in Portugal that have the same number of inhabitants [as Luxembourg] and when they do, they have multiple public services, from finance to civil registration. When you want to get an identity card, a passport or a power of attorney, you do it on the same day. Here it takes four months. It is not normal, it's not acceptable, it is intolerable," said Eduardo Dias, from the Independent Luxembourg Trade Union Confederation (OGBL), in declarations by telephone.

In a reaction to Lusa, the office of the secretary of state of the Portuguese Communities indicated that the foreign minister is attentive to the need to strengthen consular posts in an integrated logic that covers the network in all its dimensions.

In the case of the consulate general of Portugal in Luxembourg, there is an exceptional situation in which three long-term sick and maternity leaves coincided, which is significant in a staff comprising a consul-general and 14 workers, according to a note from the office of José Luís Carneiro.

The foreign minister will seek to implement other measures to address the exceptional need that exists in the consulate general in Luxembourg, including through new structural measures, studying the extension of the Consular Assistance Centre, based in Lisbon, to Luxembourg, the source said.

The OGBL was received on 7 July by the consul general of Portugal in Luxembourg, Manuel Gomes Samuel, who, according to a statement from the trade union confederation, reported the lack of staff and have already requested twice Lisbon to increase the number of staff with five more employees.

According to the trade union confederation, the consul in Luxembourg explained that any hiring, even temporary, to fill a vacancy requires the permission of Lisbon, which must open a hiring competition, and the next hiring competition is scheduled for February 2020.

"If in the first six months of this year, the waiting time to obtain a passport, an identity card, a power of attorney, etc., was one month, since the beginning of September has increased to three, four months. And it will get worse if what the consul wants is not achieved," Eduardo Dias told Lusa.

"We cannot be too surprised if there are high levels of abstention, more than 90%, among emigrants. If emigrants are not treated in the same way. Some governments say that emigrants are treated in the same way as if they were in Portugal. It is not true," he said.

Recalling that the Portuguese community of Luxembourg sent to Portugal in 2018 remittances of about €111.9 million, the OGBL considers the state of the consular services serious and unsustainable, since it can cause dramatic situations for the lives of Portuguese citizens, and can compromise travel, civil and commercial relations.