FLR and EU travel - very confused

[MPH80]

A quick review of my situation:

Me = UK citizen
Her = Peruvian citizen - entered under fiancee visa in Jan, Married in March, converted to Spouse visa in April (using FLR(M)).

Now - everything's gone fine so far - and we've re-secured her a long US tourist visa to allow journies back and forth to Peru. We have also secured a short term (90 days) schengen visa from the Germans to allow us to visit there at the end of November. All fine.

However, I think I've managed to confuse myself by reading too deeply on these forums. I've been reading about how if you are in possession of an EU Fam Residence Card (gained using EEA2) - you don't need a Schengen visa to travel around the appropriate countries - but these seem to only be issued in the UK to family members of EEA citizens exercising their treaty rights in the UK.

I'm confused why my wife (as the wife of an EEA citizen as well as a UK citizen) can't apply for one of these residence cards.

It strikes me that if I moved to (say) Germany, I could exercise my treaty rights and get her a residence card which would be valid for 5 years, far longer than her current 2 year FLR AND she'd be allowed to travel around the EU.

Am I mistaken in that belief?

We're happy to follow the process for the UK - I'm just trying to figure out the best way to allow us to travel and I'm confused why these residence cards aren't (to my investigations) available for spouses of UK citizens when they are for other EEA countries.

TIA!

M.

[Wanderer]

Simply because to use ur example if u moved to Germany as you are not German u cannot use German immigration rules for ur spouse.

Similarly u can't use UK ones cos ur not living in UK so in come the EU rules for such scenarios.

Rubbish explanation but I'm tired!

[MPH80]

Ta.

I kind of found the answer buried deep inside the treaty thread on the euro forum.

My understanding is that the residence cards can only be issued to family members of people exercising their treaty rights ... and since I'm in the UK and a UK citizen I'm not exercising my rights so the card can't be issued. Shame ... it'll be a pain to be applying for the schengen visas every trip - but hey-ho.

Still doesn't make much sense to me ... surely we're all members of the same club?? But then when did the immigration rules ever make much sense??

M.