Schengen Visa For Wife Of Eu National

[beano2274]

Going to take my wife to a few countries (will remain nameless at this stage), and thought would write an email to the Embassy regarding paperwork that is required for me to get her a Schengen Visa based on being married to me, and I will be accompanying her on the trip.

I sent the list to them and asked if this was required (offered by hawkinschris)

Application form

Passport and previous passports of applicant

My passport

Wedding Certificate

and travel insurance.

The reply came back saying that she required to show address of the hotels where she would be staying, proof of enough funds and also a reason for going.

Surely the EU Directive 2004/38/EU suggests that information regarding hotels and flights, and also the application form, is not required as we are traveling together

Edited October 25, 2012 by beano2274

[beano2274]

Just phoned the Embassy in question and was told that:

a. My wife needs to prove she has sufficient funds to pay for her stay

b. An address where she will be staying, which is then equivalent to giving the hotel booking.

c. A reason for traveling.

[beano2274]

Also to note the person at the Embassy stated that as per question 31 on the application form the address of where the applicant will be staying is requested. But as per the instructions on the same application form this does not need to be filled out by a person married to an EU Citizen.

Edited October 25, 2012 by beano2274

[Hawkinschris]

Since moving to England and marrying me an EU National, my wife has applied to the German Embassy twice to obtain Schengen Visas, both time we have submitted the list below.

Application form

Passport of applicant

EU Nationals Passport

Wedding Certificate

Address in Germany

This time, I did however include our flight itinerary as last time we never went to Germany and I didn't want them to get narky with us. (as a friend of mine had a snotty letter attached stating that they must travel to German if they obtained a German Schengen and if they didn't they might not get another)

[goatfarmer]

Provided you are not travelling to your home country the provisions of the Directive apply. The effect of the Directive is to give eligible beneficiaries the right to a visa.

This principle is laid down in Article 5 (2) of the Directive. It is interpreted in the Handbook for processing visa applications issued by the European Council on March 19, 2010. Part III of the Handbook deals with family members. It deals with the issue by asking three questions:

Question no 1: Is there an EU citizen from whom the visa applicant can derive any rights? In this case, I presume that is you although you have not stated that you are an EU citizen.

Question no 2: Does the visa applicant fall under the definition of “family member”? Spouse is defined as "core family member"

Question no 3: Does the visa applicant accompany or join the EU citizen?

You only need to establish these three facts. You do not need to provide proof of funds or accommodation or purpose of travel. Nor does your wife require travel insurance. Any such requirement would be an infringement of your right to free movement.

The Directive also provides:

"Member States shall grant such persons every facility to obtain the necessary visas. Such visas shall be issued free of charge as soon as possible and on the basis of an accelerated procedure."

This means that your spouse should be able to walk into the consulate (every facilty), request an appointment and be granted the visa in a period shorter than that which would normally be granted to non-family members.

You should not be required to go to the outsourcing agent who will charge you a fee. (You may use the service if you choose.) However, according to the Handbook for organizing visa sections of 11th June 2010,

4.4. Direct access

Maintaining the possibility for visa applicants to lodge their applications directly at the

consulate instead of via an external service provider implies that there should be a genuine

choice between these two possibilities.

In other words, if you are not given a genuine choice to lodge your visa at the consulate directly the imposition of a service fee is unlawful.

These are your spouse's rights as a core family member of an EU citizen. Insist on them! Otherwise they are worthless.

[goatfarmer]

"In this case, I presume that you [are an EU citizen] although you have not stated that you are an EU citizen."

Sorry, Beano, I see that the title of the post indicates that you are an EU citizen.

Edited October 26, 2012 by goatfarmer

[beano2274]

Where can I get a copy of this directive, as the German Embassy have insisted on a reason for travel, an address in Germany, which I believe limits my freedom of movement, I am prepared to give them the documentation but would prefer not to have my wife carry round loads of paperwork, just the basics.

A link would be greatly appreciated.

[Hawkinschris]

I am not sure of the reasons, but the form it same for every Schengen State.

The form asks your reason for travel....Tourism, Business, Medical, Airport Transit & so on. Maybe depending on which box you tick, the type of visa and length of stay may differ???

All in all it is an easy guaranteed process

Edited October 26, 2012 by Hawkinschris

[beano2274]

It does nowhere stipulate the documents really required for the Schengen Visa as far as I have read, seems there are guidelines but the Embassies add their own requirements to this.

[goatfarmer]

The directive is here:Directive

The Handbook is here: Schengen Visa Handbook

[Eff1n2ret]

Provided you are not travelling to your home country the provisions of the Directive apply. The effect of the Directive is to give eligible beneficiaries the right to a visa.

You only need to establish these three facts. You do not need to provide proof of funds or accommodation or purpose of travel. Nor does your wife require travel insurance. Any such requirement would be an infringement of your right to free movement.

In other words, if you are not given a genuine choice to lodge your visa at the consulate directly the imposition of a service fee is unlawful.

These are your spouse's rights as a core family member of an EU citizen. Insist on them! Otherwise they are worthless.

I agree with that interpretation. However, I'd be interested to hear the experiences of anyone who has tried to "insist" on these rights - I suspect they don't get very far, or experience unreasonable delays in getting what they want. The Brussels monster doesn't like the fact that the UK (quite rightly) wouldn't join the Schengen agreement, so the member countries aren't disposed to play the game, while on the other hand the UK applies the Directive more fully, having created the Family Permit to distinguish it from other visa applications. But even on a Family Permit application, if I recall correctly, there are a lot of questions about the sponsor's income and employment, although I don't know how much proof is required.

[goatfarmer]

I agree with that interpretation. However, I'd be interested to hear the experiences of anyone who has tried to "insist" on these rights - I suspect they don't get very far, or experience unreasonable delays in getting what they want. The Brussels monster doesn't like the fact that the UK (quite rightly) wouldn't join the Schengen agreement, so the member countries aren't disposed to play the game, while on the other hand the UK applies the Directive more fully, having created the Family Permit to distinguish it from other visa applications. But even on a Family Permit application, if I recall correctly, there are a lot of questions about the sponsor's income and employment, although I don't know how much proof is required.

I have tried to insist on these and many other rights. As you say, I didn't get far. The bureaucrats are unaccountable and behave as they wish. However, the European Commission has issued numerous infringement notices to non-compliant consulates.

I have recently submitted a petition to the European Commission alleging breaches of the Directive and the Visa Code by the French visa section in Bangkok.

A colleague in the UK has submitted a petition alleging that the UK Border Agency is flagrantly breaching the Immigration Regulations of 2006 by asking "a lot of questions". He obtained a UKBA training manual under the Freedom of Information Act. The manual instructs UK consuls to act in violation of the Immigration Regulations.

His petition cites 12 case studies, one of which is the Papajorgi case. In that case the court was scathing of the ECO (consul) saying that "it should have been obvious" that there was no burden on the applicant to prove that their marriage was genuine. Unfortunately very few cases get to court because very few people have the wherewithal to pursue the matter.

As I said in my previous post, if we don't insist on these rights they are worthless.

Papajorgji (EEA spouse – marriage of convenience) Greece [2012] UKUT 00038 (IAC)Papajorgji (EEA spouse – marriage of convenience) Greece [2012] UKUT 00038 (IAC)

[DannyDakota]

Since moving to England and marrying me an EU National, my wife has applied to the German Embassy twice to obtain Schengen Visas, both time we have submitted the list below.

Application form

Passport of applicant

EU Nationals Passport

Wedding Certificate

Address in Germany

This time, I did however include our flight itinerary as last time we never went to Germany and I didn't want them to get narky with us. (as a friend of mine had a snotty letter attached stating that they must travel to German if they obtained a German Schengen and if they didn't they might not get another)

Sorry if this has been asked in other threads but if it is a Thai wedding certificate will an English translation do or does she need a German translation as well? Additionally, does either translation need to have any official approval other than being done by a recognised and approved translator?

[goatfarmer]

The Handbook (cited above) does not answer your question. It leaves the matter to the discretion of the Embassy:

6.1.2. Should the supporting documents be translated?

A balance should be struck between:

– requiring a translation of all documents presented by the applicant as this could be

both time-consuming and costly;

– the consulate's capacity to analyse supporting documents submitted in the

language(s) of the host country, and

– the need to present proofs in the language(s) of the Member State concerned in case

of an appeal against a negative decision.

Therefore, the consulates should inform applicants (e.g. on websites, on notice boards) which

documents must be translated and into which language.

I would imagine that English would be sufficient since the Germany Embassy's staff may be presumed to be able to analyse English and English is one of the languages of the Treaties.

As far as I am aware, there is no formal requirement for a translation in Thailand. There is no notarization here. Therefore the document cannot be legalized. In theory you could do it yourself. But it's probably better to have some official looking translation. Might be an idea to start a new thread on this topic.

[DannyDakota]

Might be an idea to start a new thread on this topic.

cheers, done: http://www.thaivisa.com/forum/topic/594070-marriage-certificate-for-schengen-visa/

[Arkady]

The sad fact of the matter is that certain European embassies in Bangkok employ some truly repulsive Thai individuals to work in their visa sections who get a power kick out of trying to treat the spouses of EU nationals using their rights to apply for Schengen visas under the "freedom of movement" provisions as if they are common criminals and prostitutes. The expat embassy staff can't be bothered with these trivial details interrupting their cocktail party hangovers and leave the locally engaged staff to do whatever they feel like, unless some one complains forcibly. Anyway, since these embassies would prefer that everyone applied through the outsource agencies and pay them a fee, they want to make the "freedom of movement" applications as difficult and degrading as possible.

My wife was once scolded by the German embassy for not completing the asterisked parts of the form that family members of EU nationals are not required to to fill in. I forced the local staffer to go off and check with her German boss whether this a permissible request under the Schengen Treaty which she reluctantly did and came back with sour face indicating that I was right. Then she proceeded to demand an employment letter, claiming that she was entitled to ask for this as supplementary information, even though she was not permitted that the employment section of the form be completed. I complained about this the EU's pathetic "Solvit" service and an answer came back about three weeks later in English that was virtually incomprehensible and seemed to be answering a different question but anyway seemed negative. Luckily my wife was employed and was able to submit the letter of employment.

The Swiss embassy has come up with a wonderful catch which is to demand a further notarisation by your embassy of the certified translation of your Thai marriage certificate that has already been notarised by the Thai Foreign Ministry. Full marks to them for thinking up this additional wrinkle. The smarmy young Swiss guy at the embassy even managed to keep a straight face when he explained that this utterly pointless re-notarisation is explicitly required by Schengen regulations while declining to cite the explicit regulation. I was unable to find anything in the Schengen regulations supporting his view but what can you do? So it was off to my embassy to make another contribution to government coffers. When we went back with the re-notarisation my wife was harangued for several minutes by one of the odious Thai harridans about how she will never get to Switzerland without a certificate of good behaviour from the Thai police which is clearly not required. Fortunately we eventually managed to put the old bag straight and finally got the visa and had a great trip which made it all worth it.

I would like to add that I have had good experiences at the Spanish and Norwegian embassies and an outstandingly good experience with a helpful local staffer at the Greek Embassy. Needless to say the expats in charge of the visa sections are fully to blame, if they let their staff treat visa applicants like sh*t and flagrantly violate the Schengen agreement. If their governments don't like the Schengen agreement, they should repudiate it and reinstall the border posts. Otherwise, please comply with good grace.

Edited October 28, 2012 by Arkady

[Arkady]

The Handbook (cited above) does not answer your question. It leaves the matter to the discretion of the Embassy:

6.1.2. Should the supporting documents be translated?

A balance should be struck between:

– requiring a translation of all documents presented by the applicant as this could be

both time-consuming and costly;

– the consulate's capacity to analyse supporting documents submitted in the

language(s) of the host country, and

– the need to present proofs in the language(s) of the Member State concerned in case

of an appeal against a negative decision.

Therefore, the consulates should inform applicants (e.g. on websites, on notice boards) which

documents must be translated and into which language.

I would imagine that English would be sufficient since the Germany Embassy's staff may be presumed to be able to analyse English and English is one of the languages of the Treaties.

As far as I am aware, there is no formal requirement for a translation in Thailand. There is no notarization here. Therefore the document cannot be legalized. In theory you could do it yourself. But it's probably better to have some official looking translation. Might be an idea to start a new thread on this topic.

English is fine and given the quality of the local staff at the German embassy I would think their English is quite poor and their German negligible.

[stingray]

No, you not say that you gonna travel around. Take her to your home country, i guess you are european citizen. And then once when you are there you can travel. I done the same with my wife. B'cause we are married she gots a multiple entry shengen visa. Take her home and then you travel. No Hotel or adresses required.

[Hawkinschris]

No, you not say that you gonna travel around. Take her to your home country, i guess you are european citizen. And then once when you are there you can travel. I done the same with my wife. B'cause we are married she gots a multiple entry shengen visa. Take her home and then you travel. No Hotel or adresses required.

beano2274 is English, and England/UK is not in Schengen area!

[Arkady]

No, you not say that you gonna travel around. Take her to your home country, i guess you are european citizen. And then once when you are there you can travel. I done the same with my wife. B'cause we are married she gots a multiple entry shengen visa. Take her home and then you travel. No Hotel or adresses required.

beano2274 is English, and England/UK is not in Schengen area!

The Schengen Agreement obliges all signatories to respect the right to freedom of movement (enshrined in the EU Treaty) of all EU citizens, including the British, even though the UK itself flagrantly abuses the right of freedom of movement and refused to sign the Schengen Agreement. The right to freedom of movement allows EU and other Schengen member citizens to move freely with their immediate family members to other member states but not their own country. Thus Beano has the right to freely take his wife and other immediate family members to Schengen countries which are obliged to provide visas with minimum inconvenience and delay.

Edited October 28, 2012 by Arkady

[beano2274]

Arkady - my wife applied for a Schengen Visa earlier this year at the Swiss Embassy, we did not know about the EU Directive, but she was told she could have done so and that the Thai Wedding Certificate did not need translating, Thai was fine.

[Arkady]

Arkady - my wife applied for a Schengen Visa earlier this year at the Swiss Embassy, we did not know about the EU Directive, but she was told she could have done so and that the Thai Wedding Certificate did not need translating, Thai was fine.

It's not surprising you didn't know about the privilege for family members of EU citizens because the Swiss Embassy has carefully buried this information three layers down in its website to reduce the numbers of applicants applying free of charge. In fact you have to go through the website of their external contractor, TLS, in order to find our that you are entitled to apply directly to the Embassy without an appointment or a fee. There is no list of required documents on the website but when you front up at the embassy, you will be given a list that includes the requirement for a marriage certificate that is legalised by the government or embassy of the EU citizen's home country. I can't remember if it had to be translated, if it was not in English, French, German or Italian. However, most farang embassies will not notarise anything that is only in Thai and certainly the British Embassy will only deal with English. If you were married in the UK you would have to show a marriage certificate that is either apostilled by the Foreign & Commonwealth Office in London or notarised by the British Embassy. The latter may not be good enough because, unlike the apostille, it does not verify the document. The embassy will just certify that they have made an accurate photocopy, although obviously they wouldn't do that, if the thought the document was fake. At least with the MoFA notarised translation the British Embassy will legalised the signature of the MoFA officer, as they have a list of specimen signatures in the same way that MoFA has specimen signatures of all the consular officers.

[beano2274]

Arkady - my wife applied for a Schengen Visa earlier this year at the Swiss Embassy, we did not know about the EU Directive, but she was told she could have done so and that the Thai Wedding Certificate did not need translating, Thai was fine.

It's not surprising you didn't know about the privilege for family members of EU citizens because the Swiss Embassy has carefully buried this information three layers down in its website to reduce the numbers of applicants applying free of charge. In fact you have to go through the website of their external contractor, TLS, in order to find our that you are entitled to apply directly to the Embassy without an appointment or a fee. There is no list of required documents on the website but when you front up at the embassy, you will be given a list that includes the requirement for a marriage certificate that is legalised by the government or embassy of the EU citizen's home country. I can't remember if it had to be translated, if it was not in English, French, German or Italian. However, most farang embassies will not notarise anything that is only in Thai and certainly the British Embassy will only deal with English. If you were married in the UK you would have to show a marriage certificate that is either apostilled by the Foreign & Commonwealth Office in London or notarised by the British Embassy. The latter may not be good enough because, unlike the apostille, it does not verify the document. The embassy will just certify that they have made an accurate photocopy, although obviously they wouldn't do that, if the thought the document was fake. At least with the MoFA notarised translation the British Embassy will legalised the signature of the MoFA officer, as they have a list of specimen signatures in the same way that MoFA has specimen signatures of all the consular officers.

The Swiss Embassy does not have a 3rd party as am aware all applications are done directly at the Embassy

[goatfarmer]

The sad fact of the matter is that certain European embassies in Bangkok employ some truly repulsive Thai individuals to work in their visa sections who get a power kick out of trying to treat the spouses of EU nationals using their rights to apply for Schengen visas under the "freedom of movement" provisions as if they are common criminals and prostitutes. The expat embassy staff can't be bothered with these trivial details interrupting their cocktail party hangovers and leave the locally engaged staff to do whatever they feel like, unless some one complains forcibly. Anyway, since these embassies would prefer that everyone applied through the outsource agencies and pay them a fee, they want to make the "freedom of movement" applications as difficult and degrading as possible.

My wife was once scolded by the German embassy for not completing the asterisked parts of the form that family members of EU nationals are not required to to fill in. I forced the local staffer to go off and check with her German boss whether this a permissible request under the Schengen Treaty which she reluctantly did and came back with sour face indicating that I was right. Then she proceeded to demand an employment letter, claiming that she was entitled to ask for this as supplementary information, even though she was not permitted that the employment section of the form be completed. I complained about this the EU's pathetic "Solvit" service and an answer came back about three weeks later in English that was virtually incomprehensible and seemed to be answering a different question but anyway seemed negative. Luckily my wife was employed and was able to submit the letter of employment.

The Swiss embassy has come up with a wonderful catch which is to demand a further notarisation by your embassy of the certified translation of your Thai marriage certificate that has already been notarised by the Thai Foreign Ministry. Full marks to them for thinking up this additional wrinkle. The smarmy young Swiss guy at the embassy even managed to keep a straight face when he explained that this utterly pointless re-notarisation is explicitly required by Schengen regulations while declining to cite the explicit regulation. I was unable to find anything in the Schengen regulations supporting his view but what can you do? So it was off to my embassy to make another contribution to government coffers. When we went back with the re-notarisation my wife was harangued for several minutes by one of the odious Thai harridans about how she will never get to Switzerland without a certificate of good behaviour from the Thai police which is clearly not required. Fortunately we eventually managed to put the old bag straight and finally got the visa and had a great trip which made it all worth it.

I would like to add that I have had good experiences at the Spanish and Norwegian embassies and an outstandingly good experience with a helpful local staffer at the Greek Embassy. Needless to say the expats in charge of the visa sections are fully to blame, if they let their staff treat visa applicants like sh*t and flagrantly violate the Schengen agreement. If their governments don't like the Schengen agreement, they should repudiate it and reinstall the border posts. Otherwise, please comply with good grace.

The Visa Code provides that "processing visas should be conducted in a professional and respectful manner" (Preamble, para 6). Any bad behaviour on the part of the embassy staff is grounds for a complaint by way of Petition to the EU.

Ignorance of the law on the part of embassy staff is a violation of the Visa Code. Article 38 provides:

3. Member States’ central authorities shall provide adequate

training to both expatriate staff and locally employed staff and

shall be responsible for providing them with complete, precise

and up-to-date information on the relevant Community and

national law.

If an embassy refuses to acknowledge your freedom of movement rights or requests a superfluous document, such as an employment letter, you may assume that such refusal is ignorance and you would have grounds to complain to the EU Parliament by way of Petition.

Solvit is a waste of time for visa matters in my experience. I have dealt with both French and UK Solvit. They didn't have a clue. The correct approach is to petition the EU Parliament. All EU citizens have the right to Petition the European Parliament under Article 227 of the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union.

The requirement of translations is not mentioned in the Visa Code. As I wrote in a post above, the embassy has the discretion to require documents to be translated according to the Handbook (Article 6.1.2). However, the Handbook says nothing about notarisation. If I were required to provide such a superfluous document I would demand to speak to the consul and explain that I consider such a requirement unlawful, that I would provide the document under duress and that I would complain to the EU Commission.

If my wife were harangued by odious harridans and told that she needed a certificate from the Thai police I would most definitely petition the EU that the embassy in question is in violation of the Visa Code by employing such creatures and empowering them with such ignorance.

I agree entirely with your final comment: the expats in charge of the embassy are fully to blame for not training and supervising their staff. They are, as you say, in flagrant violation of the law. However, they can get away with it because they are not subject to the law of Thailand and they know that it is too difficult for the average applicant to complain to the embassy's home country. Unless we take action and demand our rights these rights are worthless and we might as well go into the embassy on our knees and beg for a visa for our family members.

[beano2274]

Arkady - again my wife applied for a UK Visa as well with a Thai Marriage Certificate not translated, it was accepted and she got the visa at that time.

[beano2274]

Today sent an email to the Embassy we are going to use for my wife's Visa application, copied and pasted for reference, all answers to this email will be forthcoming

as per the above directive my wife will be applying for a Schengen Visa at your Embassy

as I read the documentation and the application form, seems the following documents are

the only ones required.

application form

passport current and previous of applicant

marriage certificate

passport of EU Husband

Do you have any other requirements that are needed for this application. She will be using

the Freedom of Movement of EU nationals.

Yours faithfully

[beano2274]

I have also sent a message to the office in charge of the Embassies for this particular country asking for clarification of the documents required.

[goatfarmer]

Beano, you also need to show that you will be travelling together. See the three questions I quoted from the Handbook. If I were you I would quote those three questions in the email.

Anyway, looking forward to the reply.

[beano2274]

Beano, you also need to show that you will be travelling together. See the three questions I quoted from the Handbook. If I were you I would quote those three questions in the email.

Anyway, looking forward to the reply.

I have previously emailed them and they are aware I will be traveling with my wife

[goatfarmer]

I have previously emailed them and they are aware I will be traveling with my wife

They may be 'aware' but you still have to submit documentary evidence to support the claim.