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Spouse Visa & Schengen Visa

2K views 10 replies 6 participants last post by  BronwynBean 
#1 ·
We want to travel abroad for a few days next month.
My wife is on Spouse Visa here in the UK. This is valid til end of October 2015, before it requires renewal.

If she was to be apply for the Schengen Visa, are they going to reject her based on the “short” spouse visa duration remaining.
I have not seen anything online about this, but I am only assuming this could be a possibility.

Any ideas? Or experience in Schengen applications?
 
#2 · (Edited)
Short answer: don't worry.

Long answer: Such an application is covered by Freedom of Movement directive 2004/38. Such a visa is entirely free of any costs (unless you chose to use extra services such as optional external parties like VFS or TLS), issued ASAP and with minimal requirements. Your spouse needs to show that their is a familiy relation to the EU/EEA national (you) with preferably official documents which usually need to legalized by the country that issued them and a translation (incase the embassy cannot read the original document) in order to verify that their is a legal, genuine and legit family relation. They'd also need to ID both of you (passports or passport copy) and that the non-EU national joins the EU national on the trip (written and signed confirmation from you stating such should be enough, if you happen to have reservations for the trip I'd include them).

The embassy cannot ask things marked with an astriks on the application form (funds, health insurance, return transport reservation, hotel booking etc.) and the visa can only be refused incase of fraud, or national security. Lack of evidence to return is not something they can refuse over, neither that the UK visa will only last such a short time (you could leave from the Schengen area to either the UK, the country of origin or any third country where your spouse has legal access to).

Not all embassies apply the directive properly though, so read their instructions carefully and if you do run into issues see if complying with silly requests is an option if they are not too impractical. Or consult the EU ombudsman Solvit. More info:
http://europa.eu/youreurope/citizens/travel/entry-exit/non-eu-family/index_en.htm
 
#4 ·
Short answer: don't worry.

Long answer: Such an application is covered by Freedom of Movement directive 2004/38. Such a visa is entirely free of any costs (unless you chose to use extra services such as optional external parties like VFS or TLS), issued ASAP and with minimal requirements. Your spouse needs to show that their is a familiy relation to the EU/EEA national (you) with preferably official documents which usually need to legalized by the country that issued them and a translation (incase the embassy cannot read the original document) in order to verify that their is a legal, genuine and legit family relation. They'd also need to ID both of you (passports or passport copy) and that the non-EU national joins the EU national on the trip (written and signed confirmation from you stating such should be enough, if you happen to have reservations for the trip I'd include them).

The embassy cannot ask things marked with an astriks on the application form (funds, health insurance, return transport reservation, hotel booking etc.) and the visa can only be refused incase of fraud, or national security. Lack of evidence to return is not something they can refuse over, neither that the UK visa will only last such a short time (you could leave from the Schengen area to either the UK, the country of origin or any third country where your spouse has legal access to).

Not all embassies apply the directive properly though, so read their instructions carefully and if you do run into issues see if complying with silly requests is an option if they are not too impractical. Or consult the EU ombudsman Solvit. More info:
EU – Travel documents for non-EU family members – Your Europe
Hi Donutz

My husband (Pakistani citizen) is looking to apply for a schengen visa. I have been trying to research for the last couple of weeks what documents etc we need to provide and it looks like in theory it should be very easy but in practice it isn't!

I keep reading about some consulates wanting the marriage certificate to be apostilled - but apparently that can only happen in countries that are signatories of the Hague Convention (of which Pakistan is not).

So what are those people to do?

My husband has an appointment for his schengen visa next week and I am just really concerned about being refused because our marriage certificate hasn't got the right stamp!

It was accepted by the UK authorities, so it is obviously genuine, but it seems they want people to jump through unnecessary hoops.

P.S I am a British citizen and we live here in the UK together. We want to travel to either Italy, Greece or Portugal (his appointment is at the Italian consulate).
 
#5 · (Edited)
I got my wife a schengen spouse visa last week with Germany, just needed my passport, her passport (obviously), and I just gave a notarised translation of my marriage certificate and originals (Chinese so not apostillable), and photocopies of the aforementioned. They gave her a visa in two days for three months multiple entry.

I even gave flights just to be sure, but the application center didn't even accept them.

On the contrary, it's been impossible to get a visa from Portugal as they are absolutely useless and it's nigh on impossible to get an appointment. As such we applied to Germany instead. You can do it totally for free by getting an embassy appointment, but we paid £14 for the application center.
 
#8 ·
Hi Arisk,

Your response is spot on and just the one I wanted!

We had the exact same experience with the Portuguese consulate. I tried to get an appointment with the consulate, but their online booking system doesn't work! And if you try to call and do it they tell you that it can be done online only.

So we gave up and tried with Italy, but now I have seen that they only accept foreign documents when they are apostilled, which we can't get - so catch 22 situation here.

I have come across a few people online who've said Germany is the way to go, no nonesense and they follow the rules to the letter, which is a breath of fresh air! Many said that consulates would request health insurance and financial documents etc, when they are not needed for spouses of EU nationals. Some said they would have to take print outs from the europa.eu website to show to officials. That is absolutely farcical! Applicants need to educate consular staff??

What is your plan? To holiday in Germany, to go to another schengen country altogether or to start off in Germany and move onto the country you actually want to visit?

Thanks
 
#6 ·
Not all countries offer Appostille stamps (not being part of the Hague convention), in such countries you need to get the documents legalized. Some embassies even go as far as to demand that the embassy of the EU national legalizes the document. Quite silly since all the embassy does is to verify if the signature of the foreign/justice ministry is authentic, something that they could do themselves too. So yes, some embassies are being more difficult then others. The Spanish even demand that the marriage has been registrated in the EU national his/her home country.

The imstructions for (Schengen) embassies are quite clear: they need to verify that the family relation is genuine. This may require legalisation to ensure that the documents are authentic. If the demans seem unreasonable I'd contact Solvit and possibly complain to the EU Parliament so they can put memberstates back in their cage if they have a habbit of creative applications of EU directives etc.

If you really want to read into it, I'd suggest the handbook for Schengen embassies om how to process visa applications, specifically part 3 on EU/EEA family member applications (page 81):
http://ec.europa.eu/dgs/home-affair...140709_visa_code_handbook_consolidated_en.pdf

Or simply comply with demands if they don't waste or cost too much time/money.
 
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