Spain will change the procedure for obtaining a visa for Russians
Schengen countries have introduced new visa requirements. In particular, from October 1, the Spanish Consulate requests an extract from the Pension and Social Insurance Fund, which must confirm the presence of ten years of work experience. If this is not the case, applicants must provide a certificate of real estate ownership or marital status. In this way, it will be possible to confirm a close connection with your home country and the absence of plans to emigrate. Bulgaria, Italy and Hungary have announced similar conditions over the past two months.
In September, at a plenary session of the European Parliament, EU representatives announced that they had already prepared new tightening conditions for issuing visas to Russians. According to the Association of Tour Operators of Russia, when applying for Schengen, the documents of compatriots are checked more thoroughly.
Now issuing visas will become even more complicated, and the number of refusals will increase, says the founder of the ExpertViz visa center, Yuri Pevzner: “As for issuing this certificate, it is done through State Services, so there should be no problems. Another point is that now the embassy can see the work history for the last ten years and interpret the applicant’s financial capabilities in its own way.
If the applicant is not working, he must also provide this certificate, since it reflects not only the current work status, but also the applicant’s career movement in recent years. How they will interpret these documents is a question, and we will see this in practice. The results will be available in about six months. That is, now it will be important not only the availability of money, but also the origin of this money, as, for example, the British Embassy evaluates applicants.
Those at risk will be young people who have just started working, who do not have real estate, family status, and, most likely, people who have not worked for a long time and have sufficient income.
The longest processing time for a visa to Italy is about 60 days. Spain was a fairly fast embassy; visas are issued there within two weeks after the date of application; it still takes some time to register. France has increased the processing time; it currently takes about three to four weeks for registration after submitting documents; the wait for an appointment is quite long. These are the most common countries that issued visas. It is possible that some applicants will refuse to obtain a visa through Spain.”
It will not be difficult for the applicant to prepare new documents, Natalya Volkova, head of the corporate department of the Visakhod company, is sure. However, according to her, questions are raised about how the consulate will interpret information about work activity: “There are a number of countries, and Spain is one of them, that issued visas relatively easily. Still, everything became much more complicated, but if we compare it with the Baltic countries, with Finland, it was a little easier.
By and large, we can only guess why the consulates need this, in particular, this document, I think, is not confirmation of work experience over the past ten years, but control over where the applicant worked, whether he has connections with the law enforcement agencies of the Russian Federation. That is, I don’t understand how an extract from the work record book can confirm that a potential visitor to the country will not violate the visa regime. In any case, the consulate makes a decision individually, for each person separately. And a visa can be issued even if there is no ten years of experience, or it may not be issued if there is such experience.
Any document that is requested from an applicant takes time to receive, so this complicates the collection of documents for a visa. Accordingly, obtaining a visa is also complicated. From our experience, if the consulate requests some additional documents, their list expands, this clearly indicates that the visa regime is becoming more complicated and leads to an increase in the number of refusals. And the political situation is not developing very well for Schengen visa applicants.”
As EU representatives noted in September, the number of visas approved for Russians fell by about 90%. Experts recommend setting aside six months to apply for Schengen. According to ATOR, just to prepare a set of documents will now require up to 35 thousand rubles.
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