Czech Foreign Police

Discovering the Power of Blogging!!!

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!!!!

A 21st Century defenestration of Prague?

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!

Update on my previous post ‘More problems with Czech Bureaucracy’

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.

More Problems with Czech Bureaucracy

Image taken from http://www.a-cesky-krumlov.com/guide#h4 assuming fair use. Please contact me if in breach of copyright

One of the things I was warned about before accepting an invitation to become Chaplain to a continental European Anglican Church, was having to cope with a high turnover of members of the congregation. Many people come to major European cities as exchange students, visiting lecturers or on short-term contracts for international companies. Therefore, they may only worship with you for a few months and then move on. Just as you feel you have got to know them, they are leaving. The constant round of farewells I was warned, could become quite dispiriting.

To be forewarned is to be forearmed so they say. Therefore when an American couple, Tom & Myra, came to St. Clement’s for the first time on my first Sunday last September, I soon discovered that they would only be worshipping with us until the year end. Tom had a Fulbright scholarship and would be teaching for a semester at Charles University. They threw themselves into the life of the Chaplaincy and made many friends amongst members of the congregation. But, on the Sunday after Christmas, we had to bid them farewell as they returned to their home in Georgia, USA.

However, in the last couple of weeks I have lost one congregational member and am likely to lose another, neither of whom wants to leave but who are both being made to leave the country by the Czech Foreign Police. This is a wholly new situation, both for me and for the congregation.

The two people concerned, Karen and Anna, are both Americans and came to Prague in early November 2008 to undertake an intensive TEFL (Teaching English as a Foreign Language) training course with the Caledonian School here in Prague. The school, like many others in Prague, offers TEFL courses to native graduate English speakers and guarantees a teaching job with the school, to all who successfully complete the course. It also promises to support all its newly qualified teachers with obtaining the necessary visa and work permit. The following is taken directly from their website.

“American, Canadian, Australian and European Union citizens do NOT need visas to enter the Czech Republic. American, Canadian and Australian citizens need a valid passport. 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). Our visa assistant, Vera Antsiouova, will inform you about the process of obtaining your work/residency visas after you arrive”.

Back on 21^st January, Karen & Anna were taken to the Czech Embassy in Berlin by the Caledonian School, in order to submit their applications for visas and work permits from outside of the Czech Republic. This procedure in itself seems somewhat absurd but apparently had previously been perfectly acceptable to the Czech authorities. However, on Thursday 2^nd April, Karen was summoned the offices of the Foreign Police and Anna likewise a week later on Thursday 9^th. They were both given what they believed at the time to be a four week extension to their tourist visas, to allow them to remain in the Czech Republic whilst they waited for their work and residency permits to come through the system. As they discovered a couple of weeks later, they had in fact been given deportation orders telling them to leave the country in four weeks or else face being banned from entering any of the countries covered by the Schengen agreement for five years.

As a result of all of this, Karen was forced to fly back to the USA last Friday and I fear that Anna, despite the last-minute personal efforts she is currently making, will also find herself in the same situation this coming Friday. Karen relates her experience of failing to get a visa as a TEFL teacher in Prague in this blog post. which also includes a link to an editorial in the English language weekly newspaper, ‘The Prague Post’ .

I admire Karen for not blaming anybody for what has happened to her, not even mentioning her language school by name in her blog. But I am forced to reflect on why this situation has come about even though I have been left feeling powerless to do anything to help these two ladies other than offering a listening ear. Having assessed the information available to me, I have come to the conclusion that no one person or organisation is totally to blame.

Certainly the Caledonian School does not come out this scenario in a very good light. Rather than getting Karen & Anna to apply for their visas as soon as their TEFL course finished in early December 2008, the school waited seven weeks before doing anything, using the excuse of Christmas and their visa assistant being on annual leave. Even worse was their failure to explain that what the Foreign Police gave them following their respective visits on Thursday 2^nd & Thursday 9^th April, was not a four week visa extension but rather a deportation order. Karen only found out the truth two weeks after receiving it when she showed hers to a Czech speaking friend.

I do also feel that both Karen & Anna were probably a little too trusting of the promises given to them by Caledonian. Apparently, a fellow student of theirs was far less trusting and kicked up a fuss several weeks earlier. As a result, her visa came through in time.

However, the Czech authorities also have to a lot of questions to answer too. As I understand it, they decided at the beginning of this year, to apply the immigration rules in a totally different way than they had previously, I suspect in part, to teach the various language schools a lesson for flouting the system as they had in the past. Karen & Anna and numerous other TEFL teachers thus became innocent victims caught in the middle of this power struggle.

The Czech Foreign Police also seem to be reacting to government pressure in the current economic downturn, to help ensure that available jobs only go to Czech people. They are therefore now taking the full 180 days they are technically allowed to use to consider work visa applications from non-EU citizens, rather than the previous 30-45 days that they used to take. This might make sense in relation to Ukrainian building workers but not to TEFL teachers. Language Schools and the firms who use them want TEFL teachers who are native first language English speakers. Karen & Anna are clearly not taking jobs from native Czechs! Rather, they are helping to provide an important service to Czech businesses and Czech business people.

There also remains a complete lack of clarity and consistency from the Foreign Police. Depending on who one talks to, answers and explanations differ. One is left with the ongoing suspicion of corruption within the system. How is it that many wealthy Russians (non-EU citizens) are allowed to reside here? Does money talk? Sadly, I think it does.

It is my fervent hope & prayer that this situation will eventually be brought to a satisfactory conclusion. That both Karen & Anna’s dream of working as TEFL teachers in Prague, living in & learning about a different culture than their own, will be able to happen. And that I won’t permanently lose two lively and intelligent members of my congregation.

Dealing with Czech bureaucracy

Twenty years ago this year, communism came to an end in the Czech Republic following the so-called ‘Velvet Revolution’ of November 1989. In 1999, this former member of the Soviet Warsaw Pact became a member of NATO, and in 2004, a member of the EU. Yet although so many things have changed massively over the past twenty years, one thing seems to have remained completely unchanged in the Czech Republic – Czech bureaucracy.

This is something that cannot be blamed on over forty years of communist government. Apparently, it goes back much further to when this country was part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire. Although the empire was dissolved in 1918 at the end of the First World War, it’s legacy lives on in the present-day Czech Republic over ninety years later.

One of the founding principles of the EU is the free movement of people and labour between member states. Therefore, as Sybille and I are respectively, German and British citizens, we have the legal right to live and work here. But the Czech authorities do require us to register with their ‘Foreign Police’ if we are going to be here for more than ninety days, in order that they may issue us with a residency permit and a social security number. Without this proof of residence and a social security number to quote, it is almost impossible to do anything in this country except eat and sleep.

On the recommendation of my Church Council, we engaged the help of a private agency who specialise in helping non-Czech speakers achieve their registration with the Foreign Police. Andrea from the agency was very helpful at our first meeting. We were presented with a long form in English to complete, to give all the information she would need to put on our Czech application forms. The reason why some items of information were required was totally beyond my comprehension. For example, we needed to give the full names of all four of our parents including our mothers’ maiden surnames, their respective dates of birth and addresses where each of them were now living. At least the last item was a little easier than the others to answer only requiring us to write ‘deceased’ four times!

However, one question revealed a ridiculous assumption lying behind the whole of this registration process. What is your permanent address? We both immediately gave the address of our flat here in Prague. “Oh no!”, said Andrea, ” You can’t put that down”. “What is your permanent address in the UK or in Germany?” “But we don’t have an address in the UK or in Germany – we live here now and will do so for the next eight or so years. This is our home”. Whilst Andrea could see the logic of our answer, in order to gain a residency permit in the Czech Republic, you have to be able to give a permanent address outside of the country. EU law says we can reside here until we die. Czech bureaucracy still thinks that no foreign citizen will ever do so – they all must have a permanent home outside of the country!

In due course, Andrea sent us a whole batch of completed forms for us to sign. But not simply to sign – no, we had to sign in front of a notary who took details of our passports and signed and stamped (the rubber stamp is extremely important to Czech bureaucracy) to say we had done so. And we had to sign five times in total between us, at 30 Kc a signature + 19% VAT!

We also had to produce our marriage certificate. Not a problem! Ah, but it needs to be apostilled. What is that you may ask – and I did! Despite being on the government stationery of a member state of the EU, our marriage certificate had to be sent back to the UK to be stamped and sealed on the back to declare that it is a legal document. The British Foreign & Commonwealth Office will do this for you but at the cost of £33.00. Ironically, the office that does it is in Milton Keynes, twenty minutes drive from where we used to live! Now we have it back, duly apostilled, it has to be translated into Czech and the translated document certified before a notary.

The final piece of this amazing bureaucratic nightmare has produced the ultimate ‘Catch 22 situation’. We need a form, signed (and stamped of course!), by the owners of our flat, declaring that we have their permission to live here. The form also requires us to say how many rooms there are in the flat, what the area of it is in square metres etc, etc.

The flat was purchased in the name of the English-speaking parish of the Old Catholic Church in the Czech Republic, my congregation’s correct legal name as registered with the Ministry of Culture. A Czech speaking member of the Church Council found the details of our registration on the Ministry of Culture website. It shows that the person who can sign on behalf of the organisation is the previous Chaplain, John Philpott, and the organisation who can change the signatory is the Old Catholic Church.

We immediately asked Bishop Dušan if he would write to ask the Ministry to change the signatory to me so I could sign and stamp the form myself. Bishop Dušan duly wrote the letter requesting the change. What did the Ministry of Culture write back in reply? Can you please let us have a copy of Rev’d Yates’ residency permit and his social security number???????!!!!!!!!!!!

I love the Czech Republic but NOT Czech bureaucracy!