New law: It is that time again to knock at Russia’s door with the issue of slavish contracts
06:10, January 23, 2014 | News, Other news
The amendments to the laws on “Exit from the Russian Federation and entry into the Russian Federation” and “Legal status of foreign citizens in the Russian Federation” entered into force in the RF from January 1, 2014.
According to the new procedure from January 1, 2014, citizens of countries under visa-free entry procedure, including the Republic of Armenia, can stay inside the Russian Federation for ninety days per every 180 days.
According to Russian sources, the new law aims to stop the flow of illegal immigrants, although the same sources also mention that the new amendments to the law leave a number of questions unanswered. If entry into the Russian Federation does not pursue an aim to engage in labor activity, but is connected with the need of a medical treatment by the entering person or with the illness of a close relative, in this case there are omissions in the law whether or not the same timelines are effective in this case.
The new law also prescribes that if the migrant is at a medical facility due to the latter’s illness, then after the expiry of the stay period the occasion of stay in the country is deemed as valid in case of submitting relevant documents.
“First of all, this contains serious corruption risks. All of the migrants will pervasively fall sick and will submit bought fake documents, although on the other hand, it is difficult to picture whether the migrants will have a chance to properly make use of medical services, since it will directly relate to the regulations of the law which are connected with the use of medical services by migrants”, told Chairman of Helsinki Citizens’ Assembly Vanadzor, human rights activist Artur Sakunts in a talk with us.
“In practice, based on the level of corruption prevalence in Russia, legislative norms blocking the laws always lead to the spread of corruption.”
Usually, people leave for outgoing jobs in the spring and return motherland in late autumn (with the exception of mandatory condition to cross the border every 3 months, when many of the Armenians would rather travel to the Ukraine by train than to fly to Armenia).
In case of applying the law, the migrants will not be able to benefit from their permanent job due to their short stay period in the RF.
“The new law pursues a far-reaching goal. Taking into account the overall logic of Putin’s policy to reestablish the Eurasian Union, through his legislation he creates such levers by means of banning legislative norms that will be overcome in the form of signing separate interstate agreements and in fact will impose a greater level of dependence to economically and socially weak countries”, Artur Sakunts told “Medialab”.
According to Sakunts, there is nonetheless a positive phenomenon in all this leading to the EU visa facilitation procedure. The human rights activist believes that the migration flows will be directed to Europe, which implies an intention of increasing the quality standards of labor-force, bringing them in line with the European standards.
He mentions that the change is a challenge for Armenia’s authorities since migration has always a political context and the time will show how much the political goals will be prioritized over economic factors.
“But quite possibly we’ll have a situation, which will not be approved by Tigran Sargsyan, who used to say it was better for them to leave than stay not to initiate a colored revolution, now he will be obliged to accept that certain labor-force may inevitably stay in the country and he must find a solution”, says Artur Sakunts.
It is noteworthy that thousands of families have been continuously living on bank transfers entering Armenia from outside. Only during the first 6 months of the last year over 942,0 million US dollars entered Armenia, which ranks by at least 12 % higher as compared with the same period of 2012. According to the official statistics of the RA Central Bank, the vast majority of transfers belonged to Russia, it being 797,0 million US dollars.
According to the human rights activist, the most likely option to solve the issue is to knock at Russia’s door requesting for a regular slavish contract of extorting an exception for Armenian outgoing workers. At first look, this legislation contradicts the tendencies of Customs Union formation. It seemed that on one hand they wanted to create open area, where the workforce and the flow of products should be free and on the other hand they adopt such laws.
“Once again we come to the conclusion that this legislation is an oppression tool for countries to force them into accession to the Customs Union, so that such obstacles do not lead to internal political instability and growth of social tensions”, summarized Artur Sakunts.
Source: http://medialab.am/news/id/4671