Travel to Schengen, without visa, for EEA-family members

[EUsmileWEallsmile]

basically, i have a grandmother who is dependent upon my dad...she has indefinite leave to remain in this country stamped on her passport and we were just wondering if she could travel to spain using a residency card which we are in the process of filling out. The reason being, is i visited the spanish consulate embassy and found the following:

IMPORTANT NOTICE: Under Directive 2004/38/EC and according to “Real Decreto 240/2007, 16 February”, Family members of an EU/EEA National in possession of a valid UK Residence Card are not required of a visa to enter Spain when travelling with the EU/EEA National or joining him/her in Spain. Otherwise, a visa will be still required (“Real Decreto 1161/2009, 10th July 2009”).

So my dad is an EU national and my grandmother is obviously the mother of my dad and we are applying for her residency card..so if they travelled together providing evidence to prove their relationship could she travel to spain? I have researched several cases and found it has been possible for many people commonly spouses, however she does fall within the category of a family member and therefore is it possible?

What nationality does your dad hold? If British, it is unlikely that he can apply for a residence card for his mother in the UK.

A dependent parent can apply for a free schengen visa for Spain if travelling with child.

[sara.07]

yes my dad has a british nationality,...yes have been applying for a schengen visa at the same time but it's really completed and there's a fee as well as having to actually buy the return ticket with a chance of being refused..we think spain officials will have no problem it's the UK border thats worrying because she is the family member of a EU national but i think it's just a very rare case??

[EUsmileWEallsmile]

yes my dad has a british nationality,...yes have been applying for a schengen visa at the same time but it's really completed and there's a fee as well as having to actually buy the return ticket with a chance of being refused..we think spain officials will have no problem it's the UK border thats worrying because she is the family member of a EU national but i think it's just a very rare case??

A mother who has ILR and a father who is a UK national should have no problems with the UK authorities.

The Spanish visa will be free if dependency can be demonstrated.

[pmn]

can anyone offer any advice on our situation below:

We( my wife and I) had planned to travel to italy on 16 april for 7 days, we applied for a schengen visa through the VFS office in UK , we were unable to provide them with a marriage certificate which had a hague apostille stamp on it from the state we were original married in ( USA)and they turned our application down and we will not be able to provide this in time before our intended departure date of 16 April 2013 as it would involve sending our marriage certificate to america and then getting it back. we do have the marriage certificate just not one with the apostille.

by way of explanation i am a uk citizen and my wife has ILR.

is there any way of getting round this, if we were to turn up at the airport on the day what do you think our chances are of getting let through,?

[EUsmileWEallsmile]

can anyone offer any advice on our situation below:

We( my wife and I) had planned to travel to italy on 16 april for 7 days, we applied for a schengen visa through the VFS office in UK , we were unable to provide them with a marriage certificate which had a hague apostille stamp on it from the state we were original married in ( USA)and they turned our application down and we will not be able to provide this in time before our intended departure date of 16 April 2013 as it would involve sending our marriage certificate to america and then getting it back. we do have the marriage certificate just not one with the apostille.

by way of explanation i am a uk citizen and my wife has ILR.

is there any way of getting round this, if we were to turn up at the airport on the day what do you think our chances are of getting let through,?

Your ILR ought to have been sufficient evidence that you are the family. Was it VFS or the embassy that refused to deal with the application?

How old is the ILR document? Is it one of the newer biometric types?

[pmn]

Hi EUsmileWEallsmile

it was VFS that refused the application, they first of all asked for the application form which was ok, then asked to see my Uk passport and a copy which was ok and then asked for our marriage certificate and a copy, it was then that the problem arose, they never even got to the residence card.

i did asked them why other documents such as council tax bills in both our names, my daughters birth certificate etc could not be used as evidence of the existing spousal relationship and I compared this to a situation where unmarried or civil partners were applying and i suggested that they would only be able to provide such documents as they were not married, but they would not budge.

my wife's residence card does not have the words "Residence card of a family member of a Union citizen" - otherwise i take it we would not have needed to even apply for a visa in the first place.

we are tempted to turn up at the airport and see if we get by without it, but the issue we have is that most of the copies of the Eu directives and handbooks and so forth which have been linked to on the forum seem to have been used as examples for people who have a residence card with the aforementioned wording and we are worried that we will simply be dismissed.

any guidance on this would be most appreciated.

Thanks

Paul

[EUsmileWEallsmile]

It should also be possible to attend the embassy directly and bypass VFS. You are correct in that non-married partners can present whatever evidence they have. Why should married people have to follow a particular formula.

If you have a UK issued residence permit issued on the basis of a spouse. It should still state on it that you are family. The regulation mandates this.

[EUsmileWEallsmile]

It states the following on the Italian consulate's website.

Full birth certificate and marriage certificate issued outside the UK or outside Schengen countries must be duly translated into english and certified either by the Embassy/High Commission/Consulate in London of the country that issued the certificate / or translated into italian and certified by the Italian Consulate in the country of issue

http://www.conslondra.esteri.it/Consola ... in_italia/

[EUsmileWEallsmile]

is there any way of getting round this, if we were to turn up at the airport on the day what do you think our chances are of getting let through,?

I take it that your wife is a visa national. It will be difficult to board a plane without a visa. If you get to a border, you would be allowed to pass if you present evidence that you are family.

[pmn]

Thanks EUsmileWEallsmile, i see what you mean.

i think we shall still try it at the airport anyway, what documents do you think we should bring along ( on the off chance we get on the plane and to the border), council tax bill, joint bills etc, and we also have our daughter birth cert which has both our names on it - are there any others you think we should bring?

I read on here about the carrier liaison unit being the people at the airport we will need to get the airline to speak to if they turn us away, we had booked ryanair and they can be a bit awkward even on normal issues.

does anyone know of the telephone number for this unit or is it unpublished?

[trinh9htv]

Hi,

I'm British citizen. My husband and I just got married in Feb 2013. We planned our first trip away to Malaga on 19th April. He has Indefintely Leave to Remain UK Resident Permit on his own right (not because of being my spouse). He is eligible to apply for UK passport now but due to work commitment, we want to go to Malaga for a few days first then apply for his passport later (as it would take a minimum of 2 months to get his passport)

My husband's Schenghen visa was expired in March 2013. As soon as his visa was expired, we applied to VFS Spanish Consulate for visa's appointment. Unfortunately the earliest appointment was last Thursday 4.4.13. Because his passport is Vietnamese, VFS insists a minimum of 4 weeks processing time. We applied anyway. We provided all documents: his passport, my passport, our marriage certificate (we got married in England), our bills showing our shared address, our itinerary / hotel booking showing our travelling together, our travel insurance, his payslips, his bank statements, his confirmation of work. But I'm still very worried that we won't get the visa in time.

Any thoughts on this one?

I understand there's a possibility that we can travel under the directive of free movement mentioned in this thread. But our flights are with Ryanair and I have suspicion that we will get denied boarding. Perhaps travelling by coach will be less hassle. How stringent is the check-in process at London Victoria coach station?

Any comments are welcome. Thank you very much.

[EUsmileWEallsmile]

The visa should be issued as soon as possible and on the basis of an accelerated procedure.

[jake the peg]

[*]Not (yet) in possession of the residence-card as per Part 1 OR

[*]legally living outside the EU altogether[/list]In this case you are still legally entitled to travel to all of the EEA (not Switzerland ), as long as your partner travels with you, or you "join the partner".

Is this an exclusive OR? Or would one still be eligible if meeting both of those requirements?

My wife (Chinese) and I (British) both live in China and she has no EEA family member residence card.On our next visit to UK could we visit Spain without her needing a visa?

[EUsmileWEallsmile]

@jake the peg; if you wish to avoid problems with airlines, etc, I suggest you get a visa.

[dorian1986]

hi everybody as you discussed about schengen visa i would like to ask a question about this.I am from turkey and my wife is from lithuania and we would like to go to lithuania,i am wondering if i need to apply for a schengen visa upto 3 months?(i have a residence card for 5 years and we are living in the UK)or can i travel to her country with her without a visa?thanks in advance

[pmn]

Just an update on our trip to Italy, we got through Ryanair checkin/visa check without any hassle, we had no issue boarding the plane at that gate, and we were a little worry about about the immigration on arrival in Italy, but we simply handed over our passports and after a minute of the border guard flicking through my wife's passport he handed them back and we walked on

I don't know if we were just lucky but we got through without any schengen visa at all, and best of all there is not even a visa for uk residency in my wife's passport and her passport is in her maiden name, so the border guard has let us through regardless of any relationship being proven between my wife and myself

It was a big relief not to get turned away both at the airport and the border.

Just wanted to say thanks for the advice received on here especially from EUsmileWEallsmile.

[EUsmileWEallsmile]

@pmn, good story. I'm glad the trip went well.

[Diana-cy]

EEA family member Residence Card holder (Part 1): This only applies to you if

• you are a family-member of an EEA-citizen AND
• legally living inside the EU but outside Schengen (=UK, Ireland, Bulgaria, Romania and Cyprus) AND
• You have been given a "Residence card of a family member of a Union citizen"
  • If any of the above is not the case, check Part 2!

In this case you are legally entitled to travel to all of the EEA (not Switzerland ), as long as your partner travels with you, or you "join the partner".

• >>This<< thread contains all details (it was originally written covering Ireland, however it´s the same throughout the UK, Ireland, Bulgaria, Romania and Cyprus).
• The German Embassy in London issued this >>letter<< to someone from this forum, which confirms the same. (I cannot find the original post anymore, but would like to give credit... Can someone fill me in here?)
• Success stories (I will update this as they keep trickling in):
  • >>from London (UK) to Faro (Portugal) and back from Porto (Portugal) with a UK-issued EEA Residence Card<<.
  • >>from Belfast (UK) to Paris (France) with a UK-issued EEA Residence Card<<.
  • >>from London (UK) to Amsterdam (Netherlands) with a UK EEA Residence Card, issued based on a long-term relationship (not married)<<
  • >>from Dublin (Ireland) to London (UK) with an Irish 4EUFam<<

Please continue reading, but skip the next section!



EEA family member without Residence Card (Part 2): This only applies to you if

• you are a family-member of an EEA-citizen AND
• Not (yet) in possession of the residence-card as per Part 1 OR
• legally living outside the EU altogether

In this case you are still legally entitled to travel to all of the EEA (not Switzerland ), as long as your partner travels with you, or you "join the partner".

>>Article 5, Section 4 of 2004/38/EC<< reads as follows:

Where a Union citizen, or a family member who is not a national of a Member State, does not have the necessary travel documents or, if required, the necessary visas, the Member State concerned shall, before turning them back, give such persons every reasonable opportunity to obtain the necessary documents or have them brought to them within a reasonable period of time or to corroborate or prove by other means that they are covered by the right of free movement and residence.

Hi, everyone. Thanks a lot for such a valuable forum..

Here is my story: I am Russian, just married to Italian and we are living in Cyprus.
I did not receive the residence card yet, so I am in Part 2. But in any case, Italian embassy said I would need a visa to travel to Italy with my husband.. just it will be free of charge (as stated Directive 2004/38/EC).

So, where is the truth?

Directive states (article 2, 10) I do not need visa ( to travel to any EU country), but a the same time it refers to the Regulation (EC) No 539/2001, where Russians do require the entry visa, but Directive also makes an exemption for Residence cards holders:
‘Family members who are not nationals of a Member State shall only be required to have an entry visa in accordance with Regulation (EC) No 539/2001 or, where appropriate, with national law. For the purposes of this Directive, possession of the valid residence card referred to in Article 10 shall exempt such family members from the visa requirement.’

I think the confusion is because Cyprus is in EU, but not in Schengen zone, so, that’s why I would require entry visa to any EU country.

But ‘The Guide to your rights as an EU citizen’, Page 12 says:

‘If your third country family members move between a Schengen EU country and a non-Schengen EU country, they can also be exempted from the visa requirement if they have a valid residence card issued to them as family members by an EU country other than that of your nationality.’

So, I see strong case for me in travelling without entry visas to EU countries. Am I right? To any EU country with my spouse? And without spouse?
But how can I travel without visa and Cyprus residence card, I don’t understand it yet.
Please advise if you know, preferably with detailed references. Thank you so much.

[EUsmileWEallsmile]

If you have a residence card issued by Cyprus, you will not require a visa if travelling with spouse. You state you don't have one yet.

You will be expected to have a visa.

[rachelcelestine]

Dear all
hope someone help me. Iam a French living in UK and have a PR. My husband has Indian passport having residence permit saying family member of an EEA national. Thinking that he doesnt need a visa to go to France after seeing TLS website, we booked the tickets and travelling in few days. Just seen this page http://ambafrance-uk.org/Visa-for-family-of-an-European.
This says except spouse of French national anyone else can go to France without Visa. Can someone else had the same experience or went to France being the spouse of French national can give me the advice pls.
Rachel

[EUsmileWEallsmile]

Having exercised treaty rights in the uk, you can return to France as if you we're any other eu citizen - see Singh case.

[rachelcelestine]

Having exercised treaty rights in the uk, you can return to France as if you we're any other eu citizen - see Singh case.

I am asking for my husband if he needs visa.

[EUsmileWEallsmile]

Having exercised treaty rights in the uk, you can return to France as if you we're any other eu citizen - see Singh case.

I am asking for my husband if he needs visa.

I know, perhaps I wasn't clear. You and your husband will be covered by the directive on return to your home country, France. His residence card should be acceptable in lieu of visa.

[rachelcelestine]

Having exercised treaty rights in the uk, you can return to France as if you we're any other eu citizen - see Singh case.

I am asking for my husband if he needs visa.

I know, perhaps I wasn't clear. You and your husband will be covered by the directive on return to your home country, France. His residence card should be acceptable in lieu of visa.

Thats a good news to us. But why does it says except French national in the french embassy website I quoted there? would you know the reason please?Rachel

[rachelcelestine]

Can somebody tell me what pages should I be printing and taking it with me incase there is any problem so that I can talk to them with proof?,Rachel