German married to Thai moving the Netherlands

[PomRakBKK]

Hi,

A friend of mine got a nice job offer in the netherlands and would like to take his thai-wife with him.

The company cant assist him with a visa for his wife. What kind of long stay options does she have?

They have no child and have been married for 5 years now.

[beano2274]

she applies for a long stay visa from the Dutch Embassy and then when in the Netherlands applies for a Residence Card.

Donutz is the main person to speak to, he lives there.

[PomRakBKK]

Is this a straight forward process or lots of hoops to jump through?

[mgb]

Visa for the family member of a eu citizen and in the netherlands:

https://ind.nl/EN/individuals/residence-wizard/eu/Pages/default.aspx

[beano2274]

was straight forward enough when in Germany.

[Donutz]

This concerns your friend but I'll adress yor questions as if it were you:

Should be a straightfoward process. the Netherlands usually does a proper job at dealign with both short stay visas and long stay residence permits for family members of EU citizens.

The easiest option to me would be to get a free Schengen visa type C (short stay), issued for free, ASAP and with minimal requirements (see the Schengens sticky topic and also the Dutch embassies website -who forward you for info to the VFS website-). After getting the visa, travel to NL, apply for residency there. What documents you need are mentioned by the IND (Immigration & Naturalisation Department) page that MGB already linked to.

If you get the maritial papers, passports and birthcertificate etc. all in order and legalized by the Thai ministery of foreign affairs and any EU embassy and -if those are Thai documents- get them translated to English (or Dutch, German, French) also all legalized you should be just fine. The Dutch are usually a friendly and easy going bunch, though my opinion might be biased... 555

[Richard W]

Is this a straight forward process or lots of hoops to jump through?

If the UK votes to REMAIN in the UK today (one hour left to voting), the process will get a lot whole lot more complicated in a few months time if she is moving to the Netherlands from outside the EEA.

[Donutz]

Is this a straight forward process or lots of hoops to jump through?

If the UK votes to REMAIN in the UK today (one hour left to voting), the process will get a lot whole lot more complicated in a few months time if she is moving to the Netherlands from outside the EEA.

?? the freedom of movement directive stands as it is as I haven't heard on the EU council letting the UK step out of it. So with a remain nothing will change, moving to an other EU/EEA/CH nation as a EU national with non EU partner will remain as easy as it is right now.

If the UK leaves the EU it would all feoend on how fast they get out, may take up to two years. And then it would temain to be seen if the UK could do without freedom of movement. For limitless access of goods etc you can bet various EU nations want to keep freesom of movement of people aswell. Norway and Switserland, which are seen as great examples for EU critics are also bound to Directive 2004/38. Just maybe the UK could get a deal without that directive but rven such a scenario would probably not come to pass in a matter of months.

Besides, the OP is talking about a German national with Thai wife. Both NL and D are and will remain in the EU and freedom of movement. With or without the UK in the EU.

Edited June 23, 2016 by Donutz

[Richard W]

Is this a straight forward process or lots of hoops to jump through?

If the UK votes to REMAIN in the UK today (one hour left to voting), the process will get a lot whole lot more complicated in a few months time if she is moving to the Netherlands from outside the EEA.

?? the freedom of movement directive stands as it is as I haven't heard on the EU council letting the UK step out of it. So with a remain nothing will change, moving to an other EU/EEA/CH nation as a EU national with non EU partner will remain as easy as it is right now.

If the UK leaves the EU it would all feoend on how fast they get out, may take up to two years. And then it would temain to be seen if the UK could do without freedom of movement. For limitless access of goods etc you can bet various EU nations want to keep freesom of movement of people aswell. Norway and Switserland, which are seen as great examples for EU critics are also bound to Directive 2004/38. Just maybe the UK could get a deal without that directive but rven such a scenario would probably not come to pass in a matter of months.

Besides, the OP is talking about a German national with Thai wife. Both NL and D are and will remain in the EU and freedom of movement. With or without the UK in the EU.

I refer you to EUCO 1/16 European Council meeting (18 and 19 February 2016) – Conclusions Annex VII Paragraph 2 (on p35, the 36th page of the PDF):

The Commission intends to adopt a proposal to complement Directive 2004/38 on free movement of Union citizens in order to exclude, from the scope of free movement rights, third country nationals who had no prior lawful residence in a Member State before marrying a Union citizen or who marry a Union citizen only after the Union citizen has established residence in the host Member State. Accordingly, in such cases, the host Member State's immigration law will apply to the third country national. This proposal will be submitted after the above Decision has taken effect.

[Donutz]

Ah yes, that proposal, totally forgot about it. Thanks. But these proposals tend to take a lot of time, various versions being drafted and eventually may not come to pass (no unanimous support from all member states means it won't pass). As worded here it would mean a real restriction, but for now I wouldn't be too worried yet. Certainly can't any change to the directive passing in a matter of months. Hell they are still debating a new Schengen visa code and that is taking them years now.

Edited June 24, 2016 by Donutz

[mgb]

In my opinion it is simply not possible to change the directive.

The right of free movement is given in the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union (TFEU). That is primary law.

[Richard W]

In my opinion it is simply not possible to change the directive.

The right of free movement is given in the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union (TFEU). That is primary law.

Surinder Singh is safe in principle by that argument. The Metock judgement ruled that the EU had capacity to make rules relating to the matter, and then interpreted the directive 2004/38/EC. The general view was that a new directive would be required to make the changes, which many believe would be compatible with the treaties. Still, the proposal is dead for now - unless the Dutch or the Danes pick it up. (When do the Netherlands leave the EU?)

[mgb]

Art 18 TFEU non-discrimination doesn't allow to handle eu citizen differently.

In the first place it is the right of the eu citizen to have a family life.