The Beurling--Selberg extremal approximation problems aim to find optimal unisided bandlimited approximations of a target function of bounded variation. We present an extension of the Beurling--Selberg problems, which we call “of higher-order,” where the approximation residual is constrained to faster decay rates in the asymptotic, ensuring the smoothness of their Fourier transforms. Furthermore, we harness the solution’s properties to bound the extremal singular values of confluent Vandermonde matrices with nodes on the unit circle. As an application to sparse super-resolution, this enables the derivation of a simple minimal resolvable distance, which depends only on the properties of the point-spread function, above which stability of super-resolution can be guaranteed.