I am in a desperate need of help!
I will tell you about my whole situation and i sincerely hope that any one of you will be able to help me out with some good advice!
I am a Swedish national and resident, and my wife is a Tunisian national, residing in Tunisia. We got married in March 2014, and since then she has applied twice for a family visit visa in order to come and visit me in Sweden. Both of her visa applications were rejected, on no other grounds than that "they are not convinced that she will leave the Schengen area before her visa expires".
However, recently we found out about Directive 2004/38/EC of the European Union, which grants every EU-citizen the right of free movement and residence within every member state. As we all know, the family members of the EU-citizen also has this same right, according to this Directive, as long as the country of choice is not the EU-citizen's home country. Me and my wife found out about this Directive recently, and we decided to use this right of free movement, in order to be with eachother easily. It does not matter which country we go to, what matters is that the law is implemented correctly, and that we are allowed and able to use our rights.
Yesterday, my wife went to some of the embassies representing countries within the Schengen area (the embassy of France and the embassy of Portugal) in the Tunisian capital Tunis, to ask some questions about what she has to do in order to obtain the necessary visa regarding free movement to an EU-country with her EU spouse. However, the answers that she got from the staff at the embassies were unbelievably horrible, and very very rude! The guy at the French embassy told her that since she is a Tunisian national, she is not going to be able to get a visa in order to visit France. He told her that since her husband is a Swedish national, the only way for her to be with her husband is to apply for a Swedish residence permit. This is total rubbish, and completely against what the EU law says! He also told her: "If you want to go to France, I suggest you get a Swedish passport." He really said this without hesitating, even though she had with her printouts of the EU law and Directive 2004/38/EC!
When my wife went to the Portuguese embassy, the man who was working there told her that she should not make a visa application on the basis of free movement, because her visa application will be rejected anyway.
He said that since she is a Tunisian national, she will not have her rights granted! He made it sound like Tunisians do not have any rights. Like they don't have the right to do anything, or to go anywhere, just because of their nationality. He told her: "Yes, it's true, you have the right to get this visa, but you will not get this visa anyway, and you will be the one losing in the end if you submit the application." He also told her that any embassy in Tunisia representing a Schengen country will reject her visa application, and that the fact that she has been denied a Schengen visa twice by the Finnish embassy representing Sweden in Tunisia, is one of the reasons that her application will be rejected. This is also nonsense and complete rubbish! First of all, Sweden is the only country in the European Union that my wife does not have a legal right to enter according to EU law, since Directive 2004/38/EC states that the spouse of an EU-citizen has the right to accompany or join her EU spouse in any of the EU member states, except the home country of the EU spouse, in this case Sweden. Secondly, Directive 2004/38/EC also states clearly that the ONLY four grounds for rejecting a visa application made by a family member trying to exercise his/her rights of free movement with her EU family member are:
1. Public health (i. e. a serious contagious disease)
2. National security
3. (Big) public policy
4. The marriage was done solely for getting the visa
As none of the above are the case(s) when it comes to my wife, her visa application should absolutely not be rejected! They apparently do not even want to give us the chance to prove our pure intentions. This is an enormous violation of EU international law! I will certainly not accept that my wife is being treated in this way, and I will certainly not accept that my rights and my wife's rights are being taken away from us like this!
Maybe this whole story seems very hard to believe in, but it's 100% true! All of this seriously happened! I am completely shocked myself!
What can we do in order to solve this horrible problem? What organizations/lawyers/websites/persons could possibly help us? Does anyone here have any legal advice to provide me with? Has anyone here been in a similar situation?
Any kind of help or advice would be very highly appreciated!
Thank you all for your time and your help!
I wish you all the best!
Kind regards!
in sha Allah we will get it and we will not give up!