Schengen visa, is it a standard visa or not?Please help.

[shortburst]

Does the embassy indicate on Schengen visas something like VALID ONLY WHEN ACCOMPANYING THE SPOUSE?
To clarify the situation I wanted to go to Poland this summer, as a transit country, max 1 day but more likely few hours.
I contacted the Polish embassy regarding the documents I need for a visa.
The reply was though I'll be travelling with my son who is EU and has an Irish passport I'll need the following:
-non-refundable visa fee
-round trip ticket
-proof of sufficient funds for your stay in Poland
- proof of current occupation in Ireland
-a letter from my employer
-travel insurance with a coverage of at least 30.000 EUR
As far as I understand under the EU law they have no right to ask for these documents.
The visa should be free too
as under the Directive 2004/38/EC , article 2, definition 2c. Member States shall grant such persons every facility to obtain the necessary visas. Such visas shall be issued free of charge as soon as possible and on the basis of an accelerated procedure.
But Polish embassy does not agree with this. They want money and they want all the documents. It is clearly breaching the EU free movement right. I contacted Europe Advice centre though they did agree with me, I can see they wouldn't bother to actually help.
So I am thinking to say that I'll be traveling with my husband and though I am still expected to prove most of the documents like proof of accommodation and so on, I'll avoid the fee. Though I am legally entitled to be exempt from it. So if I travel alone with my child, would they let me through the border. Can they say valid only with the spouse in the visa?
What if in the situation where you plan to go with your spouse but something happens and he can't (work, health and so on) I mean we are all humans and things happen. Would it mean that I lose all money for the tickets, for the booking? And as it is only transit I'll lose the money for other tickets too not being able to make it to Poland. Please help.

[MSH]

Hello,

I agree that the only documents you should be asked to provide when accompanying your EU-citizen child to Poland is passport and his birth certificate.

You can try to contact the Polish SOLVIT and see if they are willing to contact the embassy on your behalf and explain community law to them, however, many have found the SOLVIT network pretty useless in these matters, so it's really hit and miss on this one:

http://ec.europa.eu/solvit/site/index_pl.htm

Best of luck,

MSH.

[acme4242]

Not so sure, the directive is about the right of EU citizen to bring their
non-EU spouse(or registered partner) and children, and dependent
parents, and have extended family members entry facilitated.

If the EU spouse stays at home, the non-EU half cannot claim rights from the directive to travel alone.

Now, your situations is the non-EU half wants to travel with their
EU child.

I'm not so sure, would like clarification on this,
as to refuse free travel would in effect deny the EU child the right
to enter the EU.

But I'm not so sure a child can invoke directive 2004/38/EC
can someone please clarify.

[Directive/2004/38/EC]

This is a super interesting problem. And echos something that got me into free movement issues in the first place. First of all I should say that I am not a lawyer, so take what I write as my observations and in no way as any sort of advice or (god forbid) professional advice!

I assume your spouse is UK, and so you do not have a Residence Card. You have a spouse visa or ILR?

If you were traveling with your direct "family member", as defined by Article 3 of Directive 2004/38/EC, you should have no problem and they should issue the visa for free. You should have to provide only the proof of relationship (marriage certificate) and Eu and non-EU passport. But the non-EU parent of an EU child is not on that list, for better or for worse.

The non-EU parent of an EU child is covered on the "other beneficiaries" list. Read this carefully!

Unfortunately the law is a little unclear for "other beneficiaries". For instance

Article 5 -- Right of entry
1. ...
2. Family members who are not nationals of a Member State shall only be required to have an entry visa ...
Member States shall grant such persons [ed: "family members"??] every facility to obtain the necessary visas. Such visas shall be issued free of charge as soon as possible and on the basis of an accelerated procedure.

So in this case it refers to "family members" and then talks about free visas. Are the free visas also for the "other beneficiary", or are the just for the strictly listed "family members"?

There is also case law which is relevant, though it is nothing that a visa officer would recognize or be able to digest easily.


My personal experience with this was slow but in the end positive.

My daughter is a UK citizen. She wanted to travel with my wife to Ireland, and so my wife required a visa. The Irish embassy refused to accept the application without all sorts of Irish references, and bank account statements, and airplane tickets, a big fee, and so forth. So we sent it in by mail, and got back the desired written refusal listing the things they wanted.

So we checked with the EU's free Citizens Signpost who put us in touch with an EU lawyer in Dublin. She thought Ireland should issue the visa, and that it should be free, and no extra documentation. She explained that the child could only realistically exercise her free movement rights if the adult was also allowed to travel. (See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chen_case for an ECJ case with similar ideas). I should note that she took a very broad interpretation of "family member".

So we then contacted Solvit. They were in the end helpful. The London team was so so, but the Dublin team seemed to really push it.

In the end, about 3 months later or maybe even more, the visa was issued based on just the two passports and the birth certificate. No fee and no unneeded crap documentation. Sadly the window of opportunity for the visit was gone, so the visa never got used!

[acme4242]

Can a EEA Residence Card holder (UK) travel visa free to France with her French child. ?

I think she can only travel visa free with her French spouse, is that correct.

Therefore she needs a Schengen visa ?

[Directive/2004/38/EC]

Can a EEA Residence Card holder (UK) travel visa free to France with her French child. ?

I think she can only travel visa free with her French spouse, is that correct.

Therefore she needs a Schengen visa ?

I personally would think traveling with an EU child would work out fine if you have a RC, but I would always travel with the child's birth certificate which mentions the traveling parent. Note that the relationship is not one of the normal direct family members, but is easily proven with the birth certificate.