On 15 July 2024, the National Assembly adopted, under an urgent procedure, the Intervention Act on Measures to Optimise Certain Procedures at Administrative Units (ZUOPUE). The purpose of the adopted Act is to relieve the burden on the business processes at administrative units and to regulate the faster entry of foreigners into the labour market. The ZUOPUE will be published in the Official Gazette of the Republic of Slovenia in the following days.

To achieve its purpose, the ZUOPUE introduces two main solutions:

1)  abolition of local jurisdiction of administrative units in matters relating to foreigners

By amending certain provisions of the Foreigners Act (ZTuj-2), the ZUOPUE abolishes the local competence of administrative units for issuing and renewing the single permit, the EU Blue Card, the temporary residence permit and the permanent residence permit. In these procedures, unless otherwise provided for in the ZTuj-2, the administrative units will thus decide on the territory of the whole state.

The amendment of Article 4(1) of the Act on the Registration of Residence (ZPPreb-1) will also abolish local jurisdiction for the registration of permanent and temporary residence and for the establishment of an address for service in the Republic of Slovenia.

The ZUOPUE will enter into force on the 15th day following its publication in the Official Gazette, and the amended first paragraph of Article 4 of the ZZPreb-1 will apply three months after the entry into force of the ZUOPUE (Article 31 of the ZUOPUE).

2)  (temporary) simplification of procedures for employing foreigners

A more significant change (at least at first sight) is the simplification of the procedures for the employment of foreigners, which will apply to applications submitted up to and including 30 September 2024. This measure may be extended by the Government of the Republic of Slovenia for three months by a decision published in the Official Gazette of the Republic of Slovenia (Article 24 of the ZUOPUE). 

Under the currently applicable ZTuj-2, a foreigner (worker) can only start working after the issuance and delivery of a single permit for residence and work, which includes the consent of the Employment Service and the decision on the application by the administrative unit.

The ZUOPUE provides for a simplification whereby a foreigner may already be employed by an employer with whom he/she has an employment contract on the basis of the consent given by the Employment Service (and a certificate of the filed application for the issue or renewal of a single permit), without any assessment by the administrative unit. Once the consent has been granted, the employer will have to request the Employment Service to issue an information document and the foreigner will have to start work no later than on the 15th day after the issuance of the information document to the employer (Article 25 of the ZUOPUE).

Subject to the consent of the Employment Service, the foreigner will be able to work until a final decision on the application for a single permit or extension of the single permit is taken - i.e. until the final decision of the administrative unit.

Does the ZUOPUE introduce effective solutions to relieve the burden on administrative units and facilitate procedures in the field of employment of foreigners?

In recent years, the larger administrative units (especially the Administrative Unit in Ljubljana) have been facing an influx of applications in the field of foreigners, and the procedures for issuing and renewing uniform permits (and other permits for foreigners) have become extremely lengthy. In our view, the abolition of local jurisdiction is a step in the right direction, in order to distribute the burden of dealing with these procedures among other (less burdened) administrative units across Slovenia. As the procedure is almost entirely written, with the exception of fingerprinting, which must be given by the foreigner, there are no substantial grounds for local jurisdiction.

However, there is more doubt about the effectiveness of the second solution - employment (only) on the basis of consent. In practice, in our experience, the most time-consuming step is for the administrative unit to even start processing the application - to review its content and attached documentation and send it to the Employment Service to decide on the consent to the single permit.

In other words, the ZUOPUE does not change the fact that foreigners or employers will have to file the application with the administrative units. Nor does it set a specific deadline for the administrative units to send the application to the Employment Service for assessment. In order to achieve this objective, it will therefore be necessary to organise the work of the administrative units in practice in such a way that the application is sent to the Employment Service immediately or as soon as possible after it has been submitted by the applicant.

In view of the above, we remain skeptical as to whether the measures introduced by the ZUOPUE will actually help to facilitate the entry of foreigners into the labour market and, in general, to increase the efficiency of the procedures for issuing single permits. In fact, we believe that the ZUOPUE still does not address a number of key problems in this area.

Firstly, the current legislation still does not provide for the so-called "batch processing" of applications in cases where Slovenian employers need workers, that are not available on the Slovenian labour market, quickly to carry out major projects.

Secondly, in our experience, the major delays in the employment of foreigners are mainly caused by the excessive bureaucratic practices of the administrative units (requiring certified translations of otherwise understandable documentation in a foreign language, requiring the submission of non-existent documentation, repeated requests for completion resulting in lengthy decision-making by the authority, etc.). It is also essential that the administrative practices are not known in advance to foreigners and employers, as the internal instructions followed by the administrative units are not publicly available. In our view, it is therefore also essential to review and standardise administrative practice in the field of single permits.

Finally, it should be noted that problems in the procedures concerning foreigners also arise with other forms of permits (notably family reunification and permanent residence permits). Therefore, future legislative changes will be more than welcome also in relation to these forms of permits, which, in essence, influence the applicants’ right to peaceful enjoyment of private and family life.

For any further clarifications or more detailed information, please contact one of our experts:

·        Matija Urankar, Partner (matija.urankar@senica.si);

·        Maja Skorupan, Senior Associate (maja.skorupan@senica.si); and

·        Antonina Nečemer, Associate (antonina.necemer@senica.si).