Strange case

[giruzz]

Hi,

I'm an Italian national living in Sydney.

My gf is Thai national and has a dependent visa based on my Student Visa as my un-married partner (defacto in AU/in-law in UK). In other words, we are NOT married but we lived together as man & wife for the last 2.5 yrs

She applied for a family permit as un-married partner to relocate in the UK with me. Assuming she gets that family permit, assuming that the family permit will be initially for 6 months.

Does she any rights to enter Shengen without a visa?

I tried to call the Italian consulate here in Sydney and what the guy (that was a but unsure) told me is that she might apply here because we aren't going to UK after Italy.

Another lady told me that she has to apply in Bangkok because she is neither AU cit, AU permanent resident or have an Aust. long term visa.

Do we have any right to get a damn visa? We would like to book asap our flights and we don't have too much time to spend in Bangkok for a visa.

(Bangkok is famous within the Italian expats community as a place where you can only dream about an Italian visa)


(if it makes any differences we plan to do a short visit to my family in Italy (max 2/3 weeks) then go to UK and settle there.

Thanks

g.

[Directive/2004/38/EC]

Directive 2004/38/EC is the european rules under which you apply for a UK "family permit". All the other European countries have to transpose that directive into national law and you have more-or-less the same rights to enter each country (sadly currently requiring seperate application process for each).

As an Italian native, you actually have fewer rights when applying for an Italian visa from outside of Europe. But as soon as you arrive in the UK and begin exercsing your Treaty Rights, they are then required to issue the visa (assuming the relationship is real).

Hope this helps. Read the text of Directive 2004/38/EC (available in all languages) for more information.

[giruzz]

Directive 2004/38/EC is the european rules under which you apply for a UK "family permit". All the other European countries have to transpose that directive into national law and you have more-or-less the same rights to enter each country (sadly currently requiring seperate application process for each).

As an Italian native, you actually have fewer rights when applying for an Italian visa from outside of Europe. But as soon as you arrive in the UK and begin exercsing your Treaty Rights, they are then required to issue the visa (assuming the relationship is real).

Hope this helps. Read the text of Directive 2004/38/EC (available in all languages) for more information.

Yeps...the point I'm making is that..we would like to spend couple of weeks in Italy BEFORE going to the UK.

The problem is that Italy doesn't recognize de-facto/in-law relationships (there is a huge discussion going on at the moment with some bishops claiming that in-law and same sex relationships are an open door to child molesters!

(i think this is funny if you think that many Italian child molesters are priests but...this is another story)...

(and btw...the relationship is real...)

so...do we get a visa based on family bases even tough we are not married?

who knows...

g.

[flyboy]

Your g/f will have to apply for a schengen visa at the italian consulate. Whether or not they'll issue it free of charge is another matter. As the Directive points out, if the national legislation of the country doesn't recognise unmarried partners as equivalent to marriage, they'll have to facilitate the entry of such persons. Have a strange feeling that you'll have to fork out the 60 euros visa fee for the application, as even registered same sex civil partners of EU citizens have to pay it, if applying via the italian consulate. Know for a fact that the swedish consulates will issue schengen visa to "unmarried partners/cohabitees" of EU/EEA nationals free of charge , providing they can demonstrate 2 years of cohabitation.
Here's the link and have a look at "Entry visas" and in particular the question "what does it cost to apply for a visa"

http://www.migrationsverket.se/english.jsp

Good luck.