FIDE Arbiter Fees

One thing that was passed at the recent FIDE Congress was fees for Arbiters. Not fees that Arbiters receive, but the fees arbiters have to pay to receive their accreditation. The full fee schedule (and associated regulations) are over at my other blog.
I am in two minds on this one. While on the one hand other titles (IM, IO, FIDE Trainer) require a fee to be paid, and this just extends this to IA/FA titles, on the other, FA/IA titles could be considered somewhat different. As IA's and FA's facilitate the holding over events that bring FIDE income (via rating fees), FIDE are in a sense biting a hand that feeds them. Now it may not seem much of a distinction (especially as the same argument can be made for the IO title), but an organisation charging its own officials does seem a little odd to me.
The fees don't come into effect until the 1st January 2013 and there may be a little tweaking before then, but the bottom line is that from that date, only paid up arbiters can direct FIDE rated events.