Ricky Yates

Povolení k prechodnému pobytu v CR - Temporary residence in the Czech Republic that is neomezený - unlimited or forever but NOT permanent! © Ricky Yates

This week, my blog is two years old. But having written two posts last month, about all the reasons why I like living here in Prague, balanced by one dealing with my small number of dislikes, my experience earlier this week has forced me to return to a subject that I thought I had overcome and dealt with.

Back in March 2009, I wrote a post entitled ‘Dealing with Czech bureaucracy’. In it, I described our battle to obtain residency permits from the Czech Foreign Police to prove where we live, together with what I referred to as a social security number – rodné císlo – family number, both of which are essential if you want to do anything more than eat and sleep in the Czech Republic.

In May 2009, I wrote about how we had finally managed to achieve this goal even though threatened with ‘A 21^st Century defenestration of Prague’! In this second post, I did point out the absurdity of the wording on the stamp put into both our passports. We have been granted Povolení k prechodnému pobytu v CR – Temporary residence in the Czech Republic. But it is neomezený – unlimited or forever. Of course it has to be unlimited because we are both EU citizens and can stay here until we die, should we choose to do so.

As I wrote then, I took this granting of ‘unlimited temporary residence’ as being part of the ongoing Czech mentality that believes that no one would ever want to actually live here permanently. Earlier this week when eating in U Topolu, we shared a table with a young Czech couple because there was no where else where we could sit. Latterly, the young lady spoke and asked where we were from. I did the usual explanation saying that I’m English, my wife is German but that we live and work here in Prague. In return, I received an expression of shock and amazement as to why on earth we should ever want to do so!

Armed with this stamp in my passport, together with my little green folded paper Potvrzení o prechodném pobytu na území - Proof of temporary residence, inside of which is my full name, date and place of birth and, most importantly, my registered address, I have been able to register my car. Also, aided by Bishop Dušan of the Old Catholic Church in the Czech Republic, a notarized copy of these documents has enabled me to be registered with the Ministry of Culture, as the person who can officially sign on behalf of my congregation. Whenever there has been a request for ID, just producing my passport and residency permit has satisfied the enquirer. That was until Monday this week.

Sybille has been on for quite some time that she would like to once more have a dog. She grew up with dogs and always had her own until her last one died, just before she went to live in Spain in 1999. Over the past two years, we have regularly walked past the stray dog and re-homing centre run by the city police, located on the other side of the Vltava River from where we live.

Recently, Sybille has been researching the website of the re-homing centre, aided by Google translate, to discover what is involved in adopting an unclaimed stray dog and giving it a new home. One thing was quite clear; you must produce ID to prove who you are and where you live. So last Monday on my day off, armed with Sybille’s German passport and Czech Residency document, we went off to the shelter for an exploratory visit.

Upon arrival, we did are usual explanation of having very little Czech but of being able to speak English, German, Spanish or French. We managed to communicate what we wanted and, upon being asked for ID, produced Sybille’s passport and residency document. The reaction was immediate. No – you can’t adopt a dog from the shelter – you only have temporary residence. Despite pointing out that it was unlimited and that we were EU citizens, the lady and her colleagues remained totally adamant. We had to have permanent, not temporary residence.

Despite being illegal under European law, the whole situation is also utterly absurd. I know of several non-EU citizens in my congregation who have been granted ‘Permanent residency,’ but for a set number of years, which is also a contradiction in terms! And the Foreign Police are not even consistent in their dealing with EU citizens. A fellow British blogger and her husband, who have recently moved to Prague and work together for the same firm, have also been to the Foreign Police to register. The husband was granted ‘Permanent residence’ – the blogging wife has been granted like us, ‘Temporary unlimited residence’.

I and several others have described this whole situation as Kafka-esque. I’ve recently bought myself a copy of ‘The Trial’ by Franz Kafka, to read and see if I can get my head around this utterly absurd mentality that I am experiencing. And rest assured, I am not going to stop until I have asserted my rights to be treated in exactly the same way as a Czech citizen, even if I leave a few strangled Czech bureaucrats along the way. Watch this space!

Caledonian School © Ricky Yates

Longstanding readers of my blog will remember that, back in May, I wrote about Karen and Anna, two American TEFL teachers from my congregation who were forced to leave the country because of the failure of their employer, the Caledonian School, to obtain work permits and visas for them. The original posts entitled ‘More Problems with Czech Bureaucracy’ and “Update on my previous post ‘More Problems with Czech Bureaucracy’”, can be found by clicking on these titles.

I gained a certain amount of notoriety because of these posts and as a result, received an invitation to meet with Monika Kubátová, the Executive Director of the Caledonian School, so she could explain to me all that they were doing to try and resolve the issues I had blogged about. This meeting took place on Thursday 21^st May. I wrote a further blog post after the meeting in which I recounted what I was told by the Executive Director as well as expressing my own personal opinion regarding what and why all this had happened. Entitled ‘Discovering the Power of Blogging!!!’ it can also be found by clicking on the title.

In that third blog post, I famously said that I believed that “Caledonian have now got an agreed framework for visas with the Foreign Police that should work in the future” but I qualified my remark with the well known saying that “the proof of the pudding will be in the eating’. Sadly, all the assurances given to me by Monika Kubátová have proved worthless – the pudding has left a very foul taste.

Anna flew from Prague to Croatia and spent some time on the beach before travelling on to the capital Zagreb. Here, being outside the Schengen area, she reapplied for her work permit and visa at the Czech Embassy before travelling on to Bosnia, Montenegro and then Turkey. She is currently working as an au pair in Istanbul until the end of September.

Karen returned home to the USA and spent sometime with her daughters. Slightly later than Anna, she reapplied for her work permit and visa at the Czech Consulate in Chicago.

Whilst we were ourselves on holiday in Croatia in July, we received an email from Anna saying that she had heard that day from Caledonian School that her second visa application had been denied. There was no great clarity as to why this should be other than some vague reference to overstaying her original 90 day tourist visa. Then on 19^th August, Karen finally heard that her second visa application had also been denied. You can read her own brave blog post, written a week later  ‘The Czech government denied my visa’ by clicking on this title.

To say I’m angry would be putting it mildly. I feel so annoyed that a combination of incompetence by the Caledonian School and bloody-mindedness by the Czech Foreign Police, has completely messed up the lives of both these ladies. Karen in particular, has let her house, disposed of many of her possessions, in order to live and work in the Czech Republic for a number of years. She did all of this based on promises given to her by the Caledonian School which they have totally failed to fulfil.

I am also angry because I have effectively been made to look a like a fool. The reason I was asked to meet with Monika Kubátová back in May was because my first two blog posts were being found by prospective TEFL students and had begun to generate bad publicity for Caledonian School. By posting a third time, in part regurgitating what I was told by Monika Kubátová at my meeting with her, that bad publicity was counteracted. Yet what I was told – yes promised by her, has proved to be without foundation.

When I heard about Anna’s second visa application being refused, I wrote to Monika Kubátová to ask why all her reassurances had proved worthless. It took nearly three weeks, together with a reminder email, before I got a reply. The blame was inevitably put on the Czech Foreign Police. “The system is changing before our eyes“ was the lame excuse which was a wording effectively copied and pasted from an email reply I received from Caledonian back in April,  when I first raised the matter.

At this point in time, poor Karen and Anna do not know what they can do. Both of them have belongings still sitting in Prague but cannot ascertain whether they can return, purely as tourists, to collect them. If they fly into Prague airport, will they be admitted?

In the meantime, I offer the following advice to any English-speaking, non-EU citizen who is thinking of  coming to Prague to teach English as a foreign language. By all means plan to come – despite the economic downturn there is still a considerable demand from business people and others, who want to learn or improve their English. But don’t come to Prague on a tourist visa to undertake a TEFL teacher training course at one of the language schools here. Instead, take a TEFL course in your own home country, USA, Canada, Australia etc.

Once you have a TEFL teaching qualification, apply to work for one of the schools here. Once you have a job offer, then apply for a work permit and visa whilst still in your own home country and don’t try and travel here to work until it has been granted. Caledonian and and the other language schools will not like me saying this because they make good money from people paying for their TEFL teacher training courses. Not all students pass and, even some who do, decide not to stay on and teach. And that is where the various schools make quite a bit of money. They don’t just make money from providing English language classes.

At the present time and from my recent experience, I would not trust any promises made by Caledonian or other language schools about coming here to train as a TEFL teacher on a tourist visa and “we’ll help you get a work permit and permanent visa once you are here”. Let the experience of Karen and Anna be a salutory lesson.

The power of blogging © Marco Rullkoetter

I started this blog, mainly as a way to keep friends and family up-to-date with what my new life in Prague is like. It also has proved to be quite therapeutic and has helped me clarify my thinking by having to write things down in a form that others can read and understand.

From the outset, I have been very conscious that I am a public figure (albeit a minor one) and that what I post on my blog promptly appears in the public domain. Therefore, I have always tried to be accurate with my facts and distinguish clearly between what is fact, over and against what is my opinion. But I never really expected it to be read much beyond my former parishioners in Oxfordshire, UK, various family members and friends, and now increasingly by members of my Prague congregation. It has also been discovered by a small circle of expats living in various corners of the world.

However, in the last ten days, much to my surprise, I have discovered the power of blogging. Simply by writing about how two TEFL teaching members of my congregation have been forced to leave the country because the Caledonian School failed to obtain work permits and visas from the Czech Foreign Police, within the required time limit of 90 days, I am suddenly in demand! It is not just the power of blogging but also the power of Google! Put ‘Caledonian School, Prague + TEFL’ into the Google search engine and guess what pops up on the second page of results? My blog!

On the afternoon of Friday 15^th May, I received an email from the TEFL Course Coordinator at the Caledonian School, offering me the opportunity to meet with the Executive Director of the School so that we might discuss the current visa situation and what the School are doing to sort out and resolve the recent problems. That’s when I knew this blog had been found!!!

So it was that last Thursday, Nanebevstoupení Páne (Ascension Day for those who can’t read Czech!), I had an hour-long meeting with Monika Kubátová, the Executive Director of the Caledonian School at their headquarters in the suburb of Andel. To her credit, she did not dispute any of the facts contained in my blog posts about what had happened to Karen & Anna. So in turn, I promised her that I would post in my blog, how the Caledonian School understood the situation and what they have been doing since Karen & Anna’s forced departures, to try and put things right for the future.

The following is therefore a summary of the main points that Ms Kubátová made to me.

• Caledonian knew about the official rule that a work permit & visa has to be obtained for a non-EU national within 90 days of that person arriving in the Czech Republic. However in the past, this rule had always been quietly ignored by the Foreign Police with regard to language schools because they understood the difficulty of doing it in 90 days, especially as the Schools don’t want to start the process until TEFL students have successfully completed their one month training course. Ms Kubátová claimed that they had no warning that this rule was suddenly going to be strictly enforced with effect from the beginning of 2009.
• Caledonian are embarrassed & upset about what has happened to Karen, Anna & the others in their group & what is likely to happen to those in the two following groups. The whole business has cost Caledonian money (having to pay air fares), and upset some of the companies who buy their services. Both Karen & Anna were known as good teachers and the students liked them!
• Despite the economic downturn, Caledonian still have plenty of companies & individuals who are buying their services. Therefore they are keen to retain good TEFL teachers.
• The Owner of Caledonian has had a meeting with the Head of the Foreign Police 10-14 days ago & is having a further meeting this coming week which Ms Kubátová is also attending. The Head of the Foreign Police has promised that all non-EU TEFL Teacher applications from Caledonian will in future, be processed within 60 days. In turn, Caledonian have instituted new procedures, getting trainee teachers to complete paperwork whilst they are still undertaking their initial one month course, so that applications can be submitted immediately the course is finished therefore giving 60 days for the visa process.
• Caledonian want both Karen & Anna back as soon as work permits & visas have been obtained & there are jobs waiting for both of them on their return. Ms Kubátová claimed to be in email communication with both Karen & Anna and that by them submitting visa & work permit applications from outside of Schengen, there should now be no problem in getting them approved within 60 days.
• The Czech Tax Department & the Foreign Police do not talk to each other or share information. However, it is a serious offence not to pay tax & therefore Caledonian start deducting tax from salaries of TEFL teachers before they have work permits, to avoid that the teachers or Caledonian get into trouble with the tax department.

These are the facts as the Caledonian School understands them. What now follows is my opinion.

• I do still believe that the Language Schools were warned by the Foreign Police at the beginning of 2008, that the official rules were going to be enforced in future & they were given 12 months to get their act sorted out. There are references to this in the forum of the expats.cz website. Caledonian, (and also the James Cook Language School), just didn’t believe that the Foreign Police would do it. I also believe that leaving it 7 weeks between completing the course & applications being submitted just made the situation worse.
• I also believe that because of what has happened to Karen, Anna & their colleagues, Caledonian have been forced to change their procedures. The ‘proof of the pudding will be in the eating’ as the saying goes, but I do think that Caledonian have now got an agreed framework for visas with the Foreign Police that should work in the future.
• Whilst I do think Caledonian are now trying to make amends for their past mistakes, I do note (and pointed out to Ms Kubátová) that both Karen and Anna have suffered financially as a result of all of this & whilst it is great that there will be jobs waiting for both of them on their return, they still have to support themselves over the intervening 60+ days since they were forced to leave the Czech Republic. Also, they both lost the flats that they had here in Prague. I did get an acknowledgement from Ms Kubátová regarding this point.

Not only have I had the hierarchy of the Caledonian School after me, I have also been contacted by an American student who has signed up with Caledonian for a TEFL teaching course in August this year and by a College Career Counsellor from an American University. You can see their respective comments on my previous posts. I’ve written back by email, offering what information and help I can to them both.

So it is that, much to my genuine surprise, what was originally planned as a newsy update for friends, relatives and former parishioners, has also created a few ripples both here in Prague and the USA. I’ve discovered the power of blogging!!!!

Temporary Residence - forever!

I blogged previously on 11^th March, regarding our ongoing battle with Czech bureaucracy in seeking to obtain our residency permit with respective social security numbers from the Czech Foreign Police. Last week, more than a month after Andrea from the private registration agency had submitted all our signed & notarised forms, apostilled, translated and notarised marriage certificate, certified protocol regarding our flat etc, etc, we got an email saying that all was finally ready. Please would we attend the offices of the Foreign Police on Tuesday 12^th May with our passports and health insurance cards, and our residency permit and respective social security numbers would be issued to us.

The offices of the Foreign Police open at 7.30am and we were advised to be there at that time as it would speed up proceedings. Sybille & I are not early morning people, so getting up at 5.30am to get washed, dressed and across Prague to the suburb of Žižkov where the Foreign Police are based, in order to arrive on time, did not fill us with joy. But bus and metro connections worked perfectly and we got there with ten minutes to spare.

As EU citizens, we had been told to use the entrance at the back of the building where there was a lift to the office on the third floor. We found the entrance and the lift but then both dissolved into fits of laughter. There on the wall was a notice in English solemnly declaring that “EU nationals will be dispatched from the third floor”. If you are familiar with European history you will know of the ‘Defenestration of Prague’ which occurred in 1618 and resulted in the Thirty Years War. The victims on that occasion were two Catholic noblemen and their scribe. Were the Czech Foreign Police reviving this old Prague custom with non-Czech EU nationals as their 21^st century victims????

On the third floor we met Lenka (Andrea’s agency colleague) who had got third place in the queue. Just before 8am, we signed our papers, were presented with our residency permits and our passports were stamped. But the wording on the stamp clearly indicates the ongoing mentality within Czech bureaucracy in believing that no EU national might actually want to permanently reside in the Czech Republic. We are only granted ‘Temporary Residence’ but it is ‘neomezený’ – forever!

Schengen Visa - Image in public domain via Wikimedia

As I feared, Anna has suffered the same fate as Karen. Despite going in person to the Foreign Police three times this past week, accompanied by a Czech speaking friend, she has had to leave the country today. She was eventually told that her application for a work permit & residency visa, submitted in Berlin on 21^st January 2009, would not be granted because she had exceeded the 90 days she was allowed to be in the Czech Republic as a tourist.

Anna sent me a text/SMS message with this information early on Wednesday afternoon. I rang her straight back and invited her to join Sybille & I for a meal at Grosetto that evening so I could learn more about her experience with the Foreign Police and also say a proper ‘Goodbye’. We had an enjoyable time together and discussed her future plans. She is twenty three and single and has decided to do some travelling rather than return to the USA. Her initial plan is to fly to Croatia (outside the EU & the Schengen agreement) and spend some time on the beach. Whilst being fully in agreement with her plans, we did warn her that she might observe a few things on a Croatian beach which would surprise someone whose upbringing had taken place in conservative middle-America!

Anna also spoke of going to spend sometime in the UK which is something we also encouraged her to do. Not only would she almost certainly find work there as a TEFL teacher, it would also be the best place to re-apply for a work permit & visa to return to the Czech Republic. Whilst part of the EU, the UK is NOT part of the Schengen agreement. Staff at the London embassy of the Czech Republic would inevitably speak English, thus making the application process much easier for her. She has promised to keep in touch and I do really hope that last Wednesday is not the last time we see her.

Having listened to Karen’s story on Wednesday 29^th April, two days before she was forced to leave the country, I wrote an email to the TEFL Course Coordinator at the Caledonian School, particularly challenging the clearly inaccurate information regarding work permits and visas for non-EU citizens that was still displayed on their website in view of what had happened to Karen & what was likely to happen to Anna. Much to my surprise, I got a reply the following day.

The TEFL Course Coordinator at the Caledonian School inevitably blamed the Czech authorities. “The Schengen/EU rules have literally been changing before our eyes this spring, and we have done everything we can to make the necessary adjustments.  The problems that we encountered recently were obviously unexpected, and we are extremely sorry for them”, she declared.  However interestingly, today when I checked their website, the wording regarding visas, as quoted in my previous post, had been altered and reduced to, “The Caledonian School has a full-time visa assistant to help you through the process of applying for a work permit and visa (residency permit)”. They do finally seem to have realized that they should not be making promises they clearly cannot keep nor encouraging people to arrive as tourists and weeks later apply for a work permit and permanent visa.

A big ‘Thank you’ to those who commented on my original post. I agree with both Mike and Sher, that many language schools such as Caledonian here in Prague, have a lot to answer for. To their credit, Caledonian did agree to pay for both Anna & Karen’s flights out of the Czech Republic. I suspect that the ‘tax and social security payments’, deducted from their pay packets whilst not yet legal employees, went towards paying for those flight tickets.