Residence permits drop on scandal

TALLINN -  In the first four months of this year, less than half the term residence permits for working in Estonia were issued than for the same period last year, a drop caused by the residence permit scandal of the Pro Patria and Res Publica Union (PRU) politicians, reports Public Broadcasting. According to Police and Border Guard Board statistics, 629 residence permits were issued in the first four months of 2011, while just 248 were issued at the same time this year.

In the first four months of last year, 374 people were issued the permit for being a member of management group of a company, and 268 were issued to Russian citizens. This year’s statistics put these figures at just 6 and 26.
The board explained that the major gap regarding Russian citizens came from the fact that last year, Russian citizens most usually applied for a residence permit to work as a member of management of a company, while for the first half of 2012, no immigration quota was allocated on that basis.

The cause for this was the residence permit scandal at the end of last year, due to which the Interior Ministry decided that in the first half of this year residence permits won’t be issued on the basis of someone being a member of management of a company. In April the government approved a bill on amendments to the aliens law that sets more detailed conditions for issuing term residence permits in order to reduce the danger of misuse of them.