ALB
ENG
The new draft law on the arrival of labor will not avoid the need to apply for a work visa. The question arises whether the waiting time for a visa at the embassy will be shortened or extended?
One thing must be said at the outset: No one can predict exactly whether the waiting time for a work visa will increase or decrease. But we are trying to clarify what can lead to acceleration and what to slow down procedures” Expresses one of the German authorities.
Visas for job research
A very important innovation in the draft law on the arrival of labor force is the "Job-Seeker-Visum". So far, only highly educated professionals have this opportunity. With the new law, professionals whose qualifications are also recognized in Germany will have it. This is a visa, which is issued for a period of up to six months, only for Germany, unlike the Schengen visa, which is issued for 90 days and is valid for the entire Schengen area, reports DW.
A jobseeker's visa entitles a qualified person to go to Germany without an employment contract. So far this type of visa applies only to high school graduates. The current rule stipulates that whoever finds a job within this semester, does not need to leave Germany to obtain a work visa, but can apply directly at the foreigners' office in the country where he lives. Whether this procedure will be used in the new draft law will be seen when the draft law becomes final, having been approved by the Bundestag and the Bundesrat (Federal Council). This is expected to happen in mid-2019. The law is scheduled to take effect in 2020.
German Interior Minister Horst Seehofer said in Berlin on Wednesday that the bill would be based on the current rule for graduates. But it is still not clear how similar the new law will be to the rule in question. One difference apparently is that, while for graduates with higher education they do not need language proficiency, for qualified workers without higher education, in addition to qualification, knowledge of the German language will also be required.
Hubertus Heil, the Social Democrat Labor Minister, said that knowledge is needed at least at the A2 level, which is enough to understand the basics.
Increasing the number of applicants
So, thanks to the temporary visa to look for work, it is expected that the visa issuance procedure will be accelerated, because there will be no need, as now, for the documents to pass once again in Germany, to verify the employment contract. Accelerating is also the abolition of the priority verification of a German or EU citizen.
An increase in visa applications is expected
But on the other hand, these facilities open up the potential circle of visa applicants. So, according to specialists, the number of visa applications will increase and consular points will have even more work to do.
How the increase in workload will be handled is not yet clear. The embassies, which are already very busy, have announced they will increase staff. But Minister Seehofer said a special body for labor migration would probably need to be set up.
Shtim i kapaciteteve nëpër ambasada
That the embassies themselves will not be able to cope with this influx, this is especially evident in the Balkan countries. Since the entry into force of the so-called Western Balkans Regulation in early 2016, the German consulates of these countries have had an extremely large influx of visa applications.
As DW learned from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, in 2017 alone, the German Embassy in Pristina handled 19,000 applications for long-term visas, ie not Schengen.
With these figures, the visa section at the German Embassy in Pristina is among the ten largest in the world, as are the visa sections in Belgrade and Sarajevo. This large increase also explains the fact that "although Germany has increased the consular staff in these countries, the waiting time for an appointment at the embassy goes up to several months," the Foreign Ministry told DW.
Germany plans to increase capacity in Pristina in the future, but the Foreign Ministry did not specify what this capacity increase means and when it will happen.