EU National married to African National

[ikk]

Hello evryone,

I am an EU national (Greek), working and residing in West Africa. My wife is African and we are about to start the procedure issuing a visa for her visiting Europe (short stay).

My country's embassy in Nigeria told me that we will be eligible to apply for visa after one year being married. Is that correct?

What is the actual procedure? So far, i have heard to so many versions.

The marriage certificate is not enough? Can we proceed with the application using another EU country's Embassy?

Thank you in advance.

Ikk

[MSH]

Hi,

Greece is one of the EU member states which apply directive 2004/38 to its own citizens so to be in compliance with this directive as well as Greek law the embassy should issue your wife with a visa free of charge and follow a special fast-track procedure which is only allowed to take more than 2 weeks in very exceptional circumstances.

That's the legal part. Now to the REALITY part of things:

You're in West-Africa. You have married an AFRICAN. This makes things very, very hard for you since the EU embassies in Africa are dearly beloved, bigotted and completely ignorant of basic law.

First, you have to arm yourself with knowledge of the law. Here's a link to get you started:

http://eumovement.wordpress.com/eu-coun ... fo-greece/

Next, you have to print out the relevant parts of Greek legislation stating your rights to be accompanied by your third-country wife to Greece and enclose this in the letter to the embassy in Naijja where you demand they comply with EU and Greek law.

If they still refuse you, write a letter to the Greek foreign ministry pointing out the non-compliance with Greek law at the Naijja embassy and demand that they intervene on your behalf.. you are a GREEK CITIZEN and have rights in your own country in that capacity.

There's also the option of finding a reputable lawyer back in Greece who specialise in cases involving foreigners.

Finally, if nothing comes of all this you COULD try to contact the SOLVIT network but honestly, those buffoons probably never even heard about directive 2004/38

http://ec.europa.eu/solvit/

Good luck with everything. I learnt all this the hard way a year ago when I was in West-Africa and in your exact situation too..

regards,

MSH.

[Directive/2004/38/EC]

What MSH says is generally true, though may be a little negative. Solvit has worked well for me in the past, though you can not rely on quick response from them, and I suspect they would not help you if you were applying for a Greek visa.

So you plan to remain resident in Africa, and this is only for a vacation visit to Europe?

In general your strongest legal right is when visiting a member state that is not where you have citizenship. So visiting Germany or the Netherlands or the UK or... Greece may decide to be nice to you in Greek law, but that is because they decided to and not because they are legally forced to by European law.

You should be able to apply at any time - you only have to be married, and not for a particular length of time.

Let us know how it goes.

[Laura721]

You're in West-Africa. You have married an AFRICAN. This makes things very, very hard for you since the EU embassies in Africa are dearly beloved, bigotted and completely ignorant of basic law.

So are the Greek embassies all over the world, so should be used to it. In my experience the Greek authorities are the most dearly beloved in Europe at least, (experienced this hands on). They do not even follow basic human rights. Couldn't resist, sorry!