Illustrative stock photo (source: Sme )
On June 14, parliament approved the changes proposed by MPs of the SNS party, meant to prevent the abuse of temporary residence by foreigners and submitted a draft amendment to the Act on Residence of Foreigners, the SITA newswire wrote. The approved draft introduces an age limit for those granted temporary residence in order to study as students of secondary schools who are citizens of third countries. According to the amendment, if the applicant is a full-time secondary-school student, he or she must be under 20 years of age on the date when the application for the permit is submitted. If this concerns a post-graduate student, a student studying for a qualification or at a secondary specialised school, the applicant must be younger than 23 at the time of application for temporary residence.
Language courses get more difficult, too
The SNS also proposed to cancel the option to obtain a temporary residence permit for study at a language school in Slovakia, which MPs passed, according to SITA. However, a third-country national will be entitled to receive a national visa under certain conditions, the TASR newswire wrote – but without a long-term residence permit. The duration of the permit will depend on the length of the language course while not exceeding one year, the draft amendment reads. The validity of a visa for any given school year will be until July 31 at the latest, which will enable a third-country national to stay in Slovakia one month longer than the academic year, Eva Smolíková of SNS explained for TASR. She added that her party thus wants to prevent the abuse of temporary residence permits by adults for other purposes which may be connected with illegal work or with migration from third countries which could be a security risk.
