A week after the UK demanded that Slovaks have visas to visit the United Kingdom, Slovakia retaliated with a visa requirement for British citizens as of October 15. Noting "with regret" the one-sided British decision of October 8, the government said it was confident visa-free travel would resume soon.
Despite some initial delays at Slovak Foreign Police departments across Slovakia, the visa regime has been taken in stride, and UK citizens can now get their Slovak visas issued within one day.
"Since the existing law does not specify the time that the visa process should take, we decided to make an exception in case of the UK and circulate a directive on processing Slovak visas for British citizens immediately," said Pavol Ňuňuk, director of Foreign Police in Slovakia.
The directive was sent to Foreign Police stations on October 16, but wasn't immediately understood. "Last week we couldn't get the visa immediately, but instead within three days. That caused problems for some of our clients," said Beáta Bučková of E.R.I., a company helping foreigners obtain official documents. She added that on October 21 the visa process had finally been reduced to one day. "It's because I re-clarified the directive," Ňuňuk explained.
