Licence to ... rule?

While the proposal to mandate payments for Arbiters was shot down at the 2012 FIDE congress, the new licence fee system remained. As of 1 January 2013, all tournaments that are to be submitted for FIDE rating will require a licensed arbiter to run them. For this to happen, Federations need to submit a list of arbiters to FIDE, who will then charge the Federations the licence amounts, which are calculated on the arbiters level (A to D for IA's, C to D for FA's). The licenses are for life but if an arbiter moves up a level, then a new license fee is charged. As well as that, the application fee for an Arbiters title remains.
Now this may seem like another FIDE grab for cash, and I'm not going to argue that it isn't. However the money that is raised will be spent by the Arbiters commission, on things like training and education, as well as the production of an official FIDE Arbiters Manual.
One side effect of the system is the creation of an extra arbiter classification. As there will be occasions when neither an IA of FA is available to run a FIDE rated event, the tournament can be run by a licensed National Arbiter. Now some Federations do have a National Arbiter designation (eg USA, Italy), but a lot do not. So essentially Federations that do not have an arbiters management system will have to create one, even if it is just a hand written sheet in an office somewhere.
So if you are interested in getting even the most basic Arbiter accreditation I suggest you get  in touch with your local Federation and ask to be added to the list of NA's. It is only 20 euro's and you can carry the title for life.