Change in law means some may be waiting till next year before receiving certificates of registration
EU NATIONALS wanting to renew their certificate of registration might have to wait until next year following a change in application procedures.
The problem, created after a change in the law that forces Civil Registration and Migration Department employees to conduct personal interviews with applicants, has delayed thousands of Europeans in securing the document.
“I think this is a scandal, the fact that they’ve thrown away thousands of applications and we had to find this out by ourselves, pay again, apply again and wait another year,” one disgruntled European said.
Eva Boss said she had applied for the certificate, commonly known as the Yellow Slip, under the old law in August 2007. By April this year she had still not received it and needing the verification for her employers in Sweden, contacted the Nicosia District Office.
The 64-year-old foreign correspondent said she soon learned that the application procedures had been changed.
She said in this way thousands of people had been unfairly inconvenienced by the powers that be. The certificate is required by EU nationals living here and certifies their right of residence.
But a ministry source said insufficient funds had been behind the decision.
“There are people who would have gone through all the old applications but it would have meant working overtime and there just wasn’t the money to process the old applications and the new ones,” he said.
A second official said the information had been published in the local press, the Cyprus Republic’s official newspaper and on television.
“We couldn’t send out personal letters to every single person. We advertised the law had been changed as much as possible,” she said.
Nicosia District Office head Katerina Papachristodoulou said the new process was actually more efficient as the applications were processed and issued on the same day.
“There is no longer any need to wait six months to get the certificate of registration.”
She said the application was processed during the face-to-face interview and following its approval, the European applicant had the certificate for life. Unlike in the past, s/he did not have to renew it again as its validity was indefinite.
The problem was due to staff shortages interview slots had already been filled until January 2009. Although two administrators had been assigned to handle the applications, they were only able to process around 50 to 60 per day.
“We cannot give people interview dates within two weeks from the date when they come to fill in their application forms. It’s impossible and just not feasible. You would have to employ 30 employees to do that because there are thousands of applicants.”
However she said instructions have been given to complete applications in rapid time where there was an emergency.
“We do have some slots so that we can accommodate people who need their certificate of registration immediately for some reason. It could be work related or for a health matter. If there is no urgency then we fit them in according to the available slot,” she said.
Papachristodoulou said the department was waiting for more staff to join the team to try and speed up the process as much as possible.
She said: “We are working under pressure and are trying to assist applicants as best we can.”
Nevertheless in the case where EU nationals married people from third countries, it still took six months to complete the latter’s application, she added. This was because the department had to liaise with different services, including the Labour and Justice Ministries, and certain steps had to be followed after an increase in sham marriages.
“Even if we want to we can’t speed up the process because the steps need to be followed,” she said.
The Nicosia District Office chief asked people to be bear with them while staff worked their way through the huge backlog of work.
“We are trying to iron things out and to speed them up. When a new law is implemented there are always going to be a few technical problems and delays, but we hope it will improve, especially with the additional staff we’ve been promised,” Papachristodoulou concluded.
