Foreign Residents Act, Energy Policy Act and Supported Energy Sources Act amendments
On May 6, 2014, president Miloš Zeman signed into law two important amendments. The first one amends the Act No. 326/1999 Coll., Foreign Residents Act, the other one amends the Act No. 458/2000 Coll., Energy Policy Act, as well as Act No. 165/2012 Coll., Supported Energy Sources Act. In this article we present the most significant changes of these acts.
The Foreign Residents Act
The Foreign Residents Act amendment brings several substantial changes. The first one is the fact that it will no longer possible to grant a long-term visa for foreign employees in the Czech Republic. In case of a long-term residence for the purpose of employment the so-called “Employee Card” shall be newly obtained. The Employee Card replaces the former “Green Card”. The conditions for issuing this document have also been amended. The Employee Card shall be issued only provided that the foreign resident has signed some kind of employment contract, he or she possesses the necessary expertise to perform the employment in question and the respective Job Office issues a binding opinion that the employment of foreign resident is acceptable in view of the job market situation.
Conditions of cancellation of the Employee Card change as well. Besides the original conditions of cancellation (e. g. being sentenced for an intentional criminal offense) it shall be newly possible to terminate the card in case the foreign resident’s expertise was deemed insufficient by the authorities, the employment contract terminated or the permit for employment of foreign resident expired or has been revoked.
The amendment also changes the conditions of employing the European Union residents. It will now be necessary to present some kind of employment contract in the application for long-term residence employment permit. The employer’s assent to employ the foreign resident will no longer be sufficient.
The amendment shall become effective on the 15th day after its promulgation. As of the day of publication of this article it has not yet been promulgated.
The Energy Policy Act and the Supported Energy Sources Act
The other important law amended is the Act No. 458/2000 Coll., the Energy Policy Act. The main goal of the amendment is to grant a better protection to the supported energy sources. The new protection will take the form of possible sanctions in case of a proven, repeated non-payment of the price of costs related to the support of energy according to the Supported Energy Sources Act, provided the price is not payed even after a warning. The possible sanctions are limitation, suspense or termination of electricity supply.
This amendment also changes the Supported Energy Sources Act so that it exempts the supported energy sources that are fully owned by municipalities from the Energy Regulatory Office’s authority.
This amendment was promulgated on May 21, 2014, as the Act No. 90/2014 Coll. It entered into force partly on the day of its promulgation, the rest of the amendment shall become effective on July 1, 2014.
May 28, 2014
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