[attach id=275836 size="medium"]Linzi Adair: “I don’t understand why everything is made so difficult here.” Photo: Darrin Zammit Lupi[/attach]

With children returning to school in a couple of weeks, European expatriates are facing a hurdle as schools refuse to accept their regular ID card as proof of residency.

Linzi Adair, from England, has been living in Malta for two years with her husband and two children and possesses an ID card issued to residents.

Her daughter already attends the Pembroke primary school but when Ms Adair, 37, decided to enrol her five-year-old son in the same school, she was made to “jump through hoops”.

Two months ago Ms Adair was asked for a list of documents including her passport, house letting agreement, work contract, utility bills and the new electronic residence card to enrol her son.

The Department for Citizenship and Expatriate Affairs is replacing ID cards for non-Maltese nationals with e-residence cards, a process that has been marred by chaos and delays to the exasperation of expats.

But Ms Adair is still waiting for an appointment to start the process of issuing the new card, after e-mailing the department in January.

We don’t take anything off the country, and all our wages go back to the economy

Earlier this year, the department announced that the validity of the regular ID cards of foreign nationals had been extended until the end of November of this year.

So when Ms Adair pointed this out, the school accepted her regular ID card.

However, six weeks later she was told that the procedure had changed and she needed to pick the documents back up from the school and take them to the Education Department – which refused to accept her ID card.

She was informed she would have to pay for her son’s education if both she and her husband had not received the temporary receipts of their e-residence cards pending their issue.

Speaking to this newspaper, she questioned the legality of this procedure, as the regular ID cards were accepted for Maltese applicants.

The Your Europe website, run by the Communication department of the European Commission, states that as EU citizens, children are entitled to attend school in any EU country under the same conditions as nationals of that country.

“It’s unfair. Both my husband and I work here and pay taxes. We have health insurance. We don’t take anything off the country, and all our wages go back to the economy, so I don’t understand why everything is made so difficult here.

“Would any Maltese person be made to go through such efforts and extremes if they lived in England? I don’t think so,” she said.

The Up in Arms action group, the voice of expatriates fighting against what they say are discriminatory higher utility bills and bus fares, among others, is also questioning the legality of the new e-residence card, urging EU citizens not to pay fees to State schools.

Some parents have commented on Facebook that they were only informed that the procedures had changed last week.

Last week, Alternattiva Demo-kratika said it was unacceptable that public schools were not accepting enrolment of expatriate children if their parents did not have the e-residence card.

Asked why regular ID cards of foreign nationals valid until November were not being accepted, the reply from an Education Ministry spokesman was that the Directorate for Education Services found that ID cards only were not enough as proof of residence. It was very easy to get an ID card on an address, so all applicants needed further proof of residence.

The newspaper also asked what would happen to children whose parents do not manage to obtain the e-residence card, and was told the directorate will do “its utmost” to ensure all applicants are accepted as long as all documents were presented.

“We need to ensure that all parents present necessary documents to show that they are the legal guardians and that they have right of residence.”