American Wanting to move to Milan

[Tjarb]

I am soon to be a contractor in Pakistan and will not return to the States for a minimum of one year. I would like to have my 16 year old son and fiancee move to Milan so I can see them on my weeks off. The opportunity of education and culture abroad are terribly encouraging.

How difficult will it be for them to get a long term visa and work permit for her.

I have visited the consulate web site and it seams it may be difficult. Are there better countries to do this in or can one get a resident permit in one country and travel/live in another? Not likely I know but residing in Italy or Greece is very important.

Thank you for any help and advice.

Sincerely,

Morgan family

[Bevdeforges]

Unfortunately I think you're going to have a really tough time with this one.

To get a long-stay visa to just about any EU country these days, you need to have either a job offer from the country or to have family ties of some sort. While your job may well offer plenty of support, the fact of your son and fiancé being of prime working age means that the suspicion is always there that they will be looking to take jobs away from local citizens.

It might help if your fiancé and son each had a "project" - something to do to justify the visa. For the son, you'd wind up sending him to school (probably a private school) as a sort of exchange student. For the fiancé, it would kind of depend on what she was planning on doing while there - studying? researching something in her line of work? - but some "reason" to be in Italy or Greece other than waiting for you to visit.
Cheers,
Bev