Cypriots ID cards not recognised in Sweden.

Byline: Lucy Millett

CYPRIOTS living in Sweden are facing a multitude of problems when it comes to their identity documents.

One Cypriot citizen, Georges Hamal, contacted The Cyprus Mail to report the issues facing Cypriots in the Scandinavian country.

Hamal moved to Sweden at the beginning of this year, taking his Cypriot ID card and passport with him. When he arrived however, he found that the Swedish authorities did not recognise his documents.

"Not even the post office will accept ID or passports issued by the Cyprus government. So if you have to collect something from the post office, forget it. They will not give it to you. This happened to me twice and the second time I was actually told that Cyprus is not a member of the EU," he said.

On top of not being able to collect mail, Hamal says Cypriots also face problems shopping "If you are paying by credit card they have a system that recognises your ID. But the system does not recognise Cypriot ID cards."

"Worse still" he continued "If you want to live here you need to get a Swedish ID. But again the Cypriot ID and passport are not acceptable. You need to bring a Swedish person to identify you and it has to be someone very close, not just a friend or something."

In Sweden everyone is required to have a registration number and identity card in order to work and access services.

"What can you do?" Hamal asked, "If you have just moved here and you don't know anyone you can't do anything at all in this country. This problem is affecting all Cypriots living in Sweden"

He said the problem seemed to apply to new EU Member States, even though it has been five years since Cyprus joined the EU.

"I think that refugees here must be better off than us" Hamal said "Why is Cyprus being singled out? I feel like we are being treated like a third world country and I don't understand why."

The website of 'skatteverket', the authority in charge of issuing ID cards in Sweden, clearly states that "passports from Romania, Cyprus and Bulgaria are not approved identity documents and may not be used to verify identity".

Maria Savvidou, who is in charge of political and consular affairs at the Cyprus Embassy in Sweden, said that the embassy was "not aware of any problems concerning ID in Sweden" but that "any Cypriot citizen facing problems should contact the embassy directly, as soon as possible and we will do everything we can to investigate and solve the matter."

A spokesman for skatteverket said that Cypriot passports and ID cards are not approved because they "do not contain the biometric material needed to comply with EU regulations" because they are still a relatively new member state. He said that this was "a Cypriot and an EU issue" and that it was up to Cyprus to rectify it.

"I am sure that Cyprus is adapting and will continue to adapt to EU standards on identity documents" he said.

It is nevertheless a serious issue that an EU country does not recognise the identity documents of a fellow EU member state and continues to cause difficulty for Cypriots living in Sweden.

Savvidou promised to follow up the issue and "check what problems this could create and what can be done about them". She stressed that embassy staff had not encountered this problem before and that it was the first time it had come to her attention.

Copyright Cyprus Mail 2009

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