Schengen visa application form

[trf0412]

On the Schengen visa application form a number of questions are marked with an asterisk. At the bottom of the application form it states:

The questions marked with * do not have to be answered by family members of EU or EEA citizens (spouse, child or dependent ascendant). Family members of EU or EEA citizens have to present documents to prove this relationship.

I assume from this statement that if the questions do not have to be answered, nor does the corresponding documentation need to be provided. For example, the question relating to employment is marked with an asterisk, indicating that EU family members do not need to answer this question. I would therefore assume that if one of the requirements for applying for a tourist visa is a letter from your current employer, then this requirement is waived for an EU family member.

However, when my wife (who has ILR in the UK) applied for a visa from the
Spanish consulate, they insisted that she complete all the questions and provide the corresponding documentation. Were the Spanish Consulate in their right to request this information, or is it EU legislation that EU family members should not need to provide certain information in order to be issued with a visa?

My wife has an appointment at the Greek Consulate in London this Thursday and it would be useful to know where we stand. The website of the Greek Consulate is very poorly designed and it is somewhat ambiguous regarding the requirements for EU family memebers. It simply states that you need to present an application form, a photo, your passport, your EU spouse's passport and your marriage certificate. However, further down the page it has a list of further requirements for a Short Stay Toursit Visa. When I phoned them they were very unclear as to what was required, but seemed to indicate that the list of requirements for the EU family member were additional to the other requirements, and only served to be issued with a free visa.

If anyone knows where we stand with regard EU law, that would be very helpful. But it would also be very useful to know where we stand in practice, not just in theory, because at the end of the day you can't really debate EU law in a visa interview through a thick pane of glass.

[smalldog]

In theory, all you need to provide is the two passports, marriage certificate, photo and application form. This is how it works in practice for popular embassies such as France, but there may well be embassies that don't know the rules or deliberately ignore them.

Since you don't have to provide tickets or proof of accommodation, there is nothing to stop you applying to a different country than the one you are visiting (as long as you say you are visiting their country on the form). If you're in a rush, Austria is good as they turn around postal applications in a couple of days and I think still don't require appointments for applications in person. Otherwise France is good as they are more likely to issue 6 month visas.

[trf0412]

Since you don't have to provide tickets or proof of accommodation, there is nothing to stop you applying to a different country than the one you are visiting (as long as you say you are visiting their country on the form).

Hmm, I hadn't thought of it that way before, mainly because when my wife applied for a visa through the Spanish Consulate they insisted she complete all the starred questions. It's a useful tip, but we've already paid £15 to use the automated booking service and bought a train ticket down to London.

On arrival in Greece, I presume we would have to explain to immigration that Greece is our first destination, but not our main destination, hence the reason we applied in a different consulate. Is that how it works or do they not actually care, as long as you have a Schengen visa?

I saw another post in this forum where people suggested planning a weekend in France beforehand. But the Schengen rules state that you must apply to your main destination, or, where there is no main destination, to your first destination. But how on earth can the Greek immigration official know whether or not we plan to visit another destination at a later date or not?

[John]

However, when my wife (who has ILR in the UK) applied for a visa from the Spanish consulate, they insisted that she complete all the questions and provide the corresponding documentation. Were the Spanish Consulate in their right to request this information

The staff in the Spanish Consulate in London have a reputation for being extremely arrogant and unpleasant. It does not surprise me that they insisted that the starred questions are answered and that they required supporting evidence.

Conversely at the other end of the scale, the French Consulate do it correctly. A family member of an EU citizen does not need to complete the starred questions and neither do they need to provide evidence that should indeed be unneeded by a family member.

The Greek Consulate? Not sure.

trf0412, do I detect that your wife's experience at the Spanish Consulate means your journey plans have changed? You are no longer going to Spain? If that is the case I have to say ..... good! ... it serves the Spanish right for their arrogant behaviour.

[trf0412]

Hi John,

As it happens my wife applied for the Spanish visa at the Spanish Consulate in Manchester, so I think we managed to avoid the arrogance of the consular officials in London. To be honest, the staff at the Manchester office didn't seem particularly unpleasant, although then again we didn't put up a fight regarding the starred questions, so maybe they are just as bad and we didn't see it.

Having said that, they did issue my wife with a 6-month visa despite the fact that her 2-year spouse visa was due to expire one month later, and she didn't yet have ILR in her passport, so I guess they acted with discrection, because in theory they could have denied her the visa.

So, yes, we did go to Spain in the end (this was last year), but it was just a 3-day stopover en-route to South America.

Anyway, am I right in understanding that consulates [in theory] have no right to ask an EU family member to complete the starred questions, nor do they have a right to request supporting documentation relating to these questions, BUT [in practice] if they do insist on it there is little one can do?

[smalldog]

Immigration officers in Europe don't usually ask questions, they just look for the visa and stamp it. If they did ask, you could just say you had changed your plans. You would not be refused entry for entering a different Schengen country to the one that issued the visa.

Anyway, am I right in understanding that consulates [in theory] have no right to ask an EU family member to complete the starred questions, nor do they have a right to request supporting documentation relating to these questions,

Correct.

BUT [in practice] if they do insist on it there is little one can do?

You could complain to the European Commission or one of the EU bodies that deals with such complaints, but this wouldn't get results quickly. The best solution is to apply at a Schengen embassy that follows the rules.

[Marie B]

My husband (spouse of EU citizen - me) applied for a Greek Schengen visa in April from the Greek Embassy in London. The staff were very rude but they did grant him a visa for Greece valid for two entries of 25 days each (after first offering to repatriate him from the UK to Albania free of charge). He only filled in the non-starred parts of the form and took as documentation his passport, my passport, and our wedding certificate, there was no fee. It took 12 working days to get his passport with the visa in it back. That was it, they wouldn't grant any longer even though we wanted to travel back to Greece in August, and when he got fed up and said 'I don't know why I came here, I should have applied at the French Embassy instead', the lady just replied 'why don't you then?'. I was really quite angry with how they treated my husband, for more of an idea of what the Greek Embassy is like in practice have a look at the end of this topic, I had a bit of a rant:

http://www.immigrationboards.com/viewto ... c&start=20

If you are travelling soon you probably won't get an appointment at the French Embassy in time (if you decided to go that route instead), at the moment it is taking about 35 working days to get an appointment, although they do process the application on the same day.

When we travelled to Greece in April there were no immigration officials anywhere to be found on entry or exit from Athens airport, my husband's schengen visa was only stamped on transit through Munich. Apparently Immigration Officials at Athens airport only 'show up' for flights arriving from outside of the EU - and then this is quite sporadic, I'd be very surprised if you saw anyone at all. In contrast the German Immigration Officials pounced on my husband on the gangway to the plane back to Heathrow and asked a lot of un-pc questions very loudly in front of everyone even though he has a valid spouse visa - had to try very hard not to shout 'he's with me'.

[trf0412]

Marie,

Thanks for the reply. Further up in this thread you'll notice that I refer to another thread where the author was advised to go to the French consulate. In fact, I was referring to the thread that you directed me to, so I'd already read all about your experience!

Anyway, although we don't travel until September, we've already spent £15 booking an appointment on their ridiculous automated booking line and my wife has a ticket to get down to London, so it's probably not worth trying to get a visa from any other consulate.

To be honest, I don't understand why the Schengen visa rules state that you must apply at the consulate of your main destination. If your main destination does not necessarily have to be the first country you enter, then how on earth can they stop people applying at one consulate, travelling to another country, and then saying the country named on their visa is their next stop (even if they have no intention of going there)? It's ridiculous, but given that I don't know how they implement this rule, (and it seems they don't or they can't), we didn't want to take the risk and simply booked an appointment at the Greek consulate.

I am very surprised to learn that Greek immigration control is somewhat non-existent. Although it doesn't bother me that I may not have to stand in a long queue, I would really expect someone to check my wife's visa given the lengths we're going to in order to get it!!

It seems from your husbands experience that at least the Greeks don't ask for you to filled in the starred questions.

[smalldog]

how on earth can they stop people applying at one consulate, travelling to another country, and then saying the country named on their visa is their next stop (even if they have no intention of going there)?

They don't. However, most applicants are not family members of EU citizens so they have to go to the trouble of booking transportation and accommodation in the country they are applying to.

I am very surprised to learn that Greek immigration control is somewhat non-existent. Although it doesn't bother me that I may not have to stand in a long queue, I would really expect someone to check my wife's visa given the lengths we're going to in order to get it!!

The previous poster had flown from Germany to Athens -- this is an internal flight within the Schengen area so you wouldn't expect any immigration controls. People entering on a direct flight from the UK will certainly have their passports examined.

[Dawie]

I have just had an appointment with the Spanish Embassy in London this morning and I have to say I did not experience the rude and arrogant behaviour that John has described.

Furthermore I didn't pay £15 for an appointment over the phone. If you read the instructions on the website you simply have to write a letter to them requesting an appointment and they write back to with an appointment letter stating when your scheduled appointment is. This is what I did and the letter arrived within a week of writing to them.

I had all the required documentation with me and I was in and out of there within half an hour and told to collect my passport the following week. The only documentation they requested from me was the application form, photos, bank statement and letter of employment. In addition to this I had brought photocopies of my travel insurance, tickets and accomodation which they surprisingly didn't ask for.

They granted me a 6 month multiple-entry Schengen visa. I asked for a longer one (I have previously held three 1-year multiple-entry schengen visas from the French embassy) but they said that as this was my first application to Spain they could only grant me a 6 month one, but they would be happy to grant me a 1-year visa the next time I apply.

The only time that I saw the person processing the visa applications get rude and arrogant with anyone was when they failed to bring the correct supporting documentation with them and then tried to argue the toss. To be fair, it's not difficult to bring the correct documentation.

From my experience of obtaining Schengen visas I would seriously advise against applying for a Schengen visa from a country that you are not going to visit. The last time I applied for a French schengen visa they got quite shirty with me because in their opinion I had not used the visa enough to go to France. The woman then proceeded to warn me that after she granted me the new French Schengen visa I absolutely had to go to France the first time I used it and that the number of times I went to France on that visa had to at least equal the combined number of trips to other Schengen countries. In other words they would not like to see you use your French Schengen visa to go to France once and then subsequently use it for four other trips to other Schengen countries. She made it very clear to me that this was officially frowned upon.

[trf0412]

I have just had an appointment with the Spanish Embassy in London this morning and I have to say I did not experience the rude and arrogant behaviour that John has described.

Furthermore I didn't pay £15 for an appointment over the phone. If you read the instructions on the website you simply have to write a letter to them requesting an appointment and they write back to with an appointment letter stating when your scheduled appointment is. This is what I did and the letter arrived within a week of writing to them.

Dawie, thanks for the information regarding Schengen visas. However, my wife will be applying for a visa from the Greek Consulate and not the Spanish Consulate (see the first post - the comments about the Spanish consulate came later). Unfortunately, the Greek consulate does not give you the luxury of applying for an appointment by post, so we could not have avoided the £15. Cleary it's just a mony-making scheme and I find it quite appalling.

[Dawie]

Yeah, quite a few embassies are guilty of this.

[trf0412]

Well, my wife went for her appointment at the Greek Consulate today. She handed them the application form (with all the questions marked with * unanswered) and gave them her passport, my passport and our marriage certificate, together with a certified translation.

However, they insisted that she present them with details of our itinerary, bank statements and so on. Luckily my wife took these documents as we had a sneaking suspision that if any consulate was going to be arrogant and request further information it would be the Greeks! They also asked for a third photo and wanted to keep all the original documents, until my wife insisted that they give them back.

Finally, they said my wife could collect her passport next week and acted in a somewhat stroppy manner when she requested that they post it to her and presented them with the Special Delivery envelope.

To be honest I find it quite appalling, from the very beginning when they charge you £15 to make an appointment, to the very end when they expect you to pick up your passport even though we live more than 200 miles from London.

I sincerely hope the Greeks in general are not as arrogant and rude as the consulate staff!!

[Dawie]

If the UK could only join the Schengen agreement, all of these issues would be a thing of the past.

[jes2jes]

Marie B wrote:

In contrast the German Immigration Officials pounced on my husband on the gangway to the plane back to Heathrow and asked a lot of un-pc questions very loudly in front of everyone even though he has a valid spouse visa - had to try very hard not to shout 'he's with me'.

Marie, I must agree with you that the German's in my opinion are the worst of all in Europe concerning non-EU citizens using their ports. I once went through Frankfurt on my way to the states because of a flight cancellation going direct and the alternative was to transit through their ports. I had the transit visa alright from their embassy in London (I must say they are very professional at that place). They singled out only non-Eu citizens to question. I was not very happy with them and I refused to answer any questions they asked since I was not coming to Germany but just transiting. I told them any questions they ask which is not relevant to my journey would not be answered and I stuck to that. I had a very squeezed face at the IO's. Later they photocopied my passport and wanted to check if I was really going to the states. I told them I will not step foot in their country for the love of beer.

My brother was studying in Berlin later on for his MSc but I refused to go there although I had the visas issued but for the sake of their attitude, they lost my tourist money and love.

The French I must agree are spot on because they know the rules and regulations but some of the others are just plain lazy and unprofessional.

One day all these will end and we will not need to go through all these hassle.

[Dawie]

They singled out only non-Eu citizens to question.

If you don't mind me asking, how did they single out non-EU citizens?

[Marie B]

trf0412 - how strange that they asked for all the other supporting documentation when they are not supposed to, good job they didn't ask my husband for that as he didn't take any of it with him when he went. And your wife's visa will be ready in a week when my husband's took 12 working days. It seems there is no standard procedure at all - and this when dealling with the relatively straightforward applications from spouses of EU citizens.

My husband was going to complain to one of the EU bodies about the fact that two security guards tried to knock him to the floor as he walked in (he was holding his Albanian passport in his hand but also the pink appointment letter - which no-one else seemed to have), they let go of him (he was physically restrained) when he showed them his other documents and the details of his appointment time. The main complaint he and I wanted to make was that when he finally handed all his documents and application form over, the first thing the lady said to him (on seeing his Albanian passport) was that she could ' make arrangements for him to return back home', to which he said 'no, thank you, I'm here to apply for a schengen visa as I'm going on holiday to Greece', to which she replied 'are you sure you don't want to just return to Albania', so he again said 'no' and she then looked at the documents and application form he had submitted (!). In the end we just decided it wasn't worth all the hassle.

The previous poster had flown from Germany to Athens -- this is an internal flight within the Schengen area so you wouldn't expect any immigration controls. People entering on a direct flight from the UK will certainly have their passports examined.

I completely agree with this in theory, and would have thought that this was the reason we saw no-one - only in practice our flight arrived in Athens within minutes of quite a few others arriving from different non-schengen countries including the UK. There was not a single Immigration Official anywhere - everyone walked through together after collecting their baggage. We were both quite surprised after all the trouble of getting the visa from the Greek Embassy that it was never looked at or stamped in Greece. It would be interesting to know if there are any IOs on duty in September.

In contrast I was quite amazed by the German IOs on transit through Germany, especially as we were not stepping foot outside the airport. They had officials everywhere and we went through passport control where they stamped my husband's schengen visa, but he was then stopped and questioned loudly by the officials waiting near the plane. I guess as a British passport holder I'm not that used to being questioned what i'm doing when I travel. But why single people out as you are stepping on the plane - it really made it look like my husband was up to something dodgy?!

[Marie B]

Dawie - in our experience they asked to see everyone's passports as we approached the plane. They did not look in the passports of the EU passport holders, just at the covers. They then questioned all those who did not have EU passports.

I didn't have a problem with this at all, it was more with the questions they asked and how and where they asked them that seemed a bit much.

[jes2jes]

Dawie,
I guess your questioned has been answered. I noticed that, at the check-in gate befor boarding, there is a counter with IO who checks passports. All EU ppt holders are waived through. Any non-EU are flagged to the side and questioned. I saw a couple of people with Nigerian ppts and a few african ones as such. It was plain and simple.

[Dawie]

Did you get the impression that the interrogations were racially motivated? I.e. were they pulling over predominately non-white passengers?

[jes2jes]

IMHO yes. I concluded that they were pure dearly beloved for singling out only black people and expecially African's as such.

My brother lived there for a couple of years and the stories are just bad. Anytime he comes to England during those days, he feels as if he's in paradise. I am not saying they are all like that but the attitude towards non-eu citizen's is not much to write home about. I travel to Geneva about 4 times in a year and I am just happy to be there. No hassle and they are happy I am coming to boost their economy with my hard earned currency.

[Dawie]

So it was probably more a case of them taking a look at the colour of your skin rather than the colour of your passport when deciding who to pull over.

I've commented elsewhere on this board about the link between immigration control and beloved so I won't go on too much about it again. I am a white South African who currently only holds South African citizenship. This puts me in the interesting position of comparing the experiences of my fellow black South Africans when going through immigration controls to my experiences. In theory immigration officers are supposed to judge you on your nationality, not on the colour of your skin. However it is clear that my fellow black South Africans have had a lot more negative experiences with immigration officials than I have. Despite holding the citizenship and passport of an African country, I have never had any problems obtaining visas for travel, going through any airport or been harassed by any official.

When travelling back from South Africa and landing in Heathrow I have often see black South Africans who have travelled on the same plane with me subjected to humiliating and degrading questioning and harassment from immigration officers. I have never been subjected to this and I can only think that it is because of the colour of my skin.

[jes2jes]

Dawie,
That I agree to it perfectly but it is better in other places than we can count. I think some European IO's turn to be more pre-judgemental of their encounters with blacks than whites. To some of them, every black person is a bad person. A con man, a thief or someone looking to take advantage of the system.
In America, where I also travel often (at least 2x a year). Everyone is treated the same whether white or black. So long as you meet the requirements you are safe but not the same in some european ports. In Canada too they are very tolerant.

I think your passport makes a lot of difference too. My pastor is almost white due to an european mom and an almost white African husband. When he travels everyone is nice at the Immigration counter until he pulls out his African ppt and then the treatment changes. This person has both British and another european nationality but choses to use his African ppt and you will be amazed.

I believe with time things will improve but there are people who for the sake of your colour already do not like you.

[scrudu]

Having lived in Germany, I can say that it is not only IO's that treat people differently depending on the colour of their skin. The German police have a policy of random checks, where they stop people on the street and ask for ID, do a pat down or strip search, and ask questions. I have never seen a white peson stopped for this check, usually only "coloured" people, mostly Turks and other new citizens of Germany.

I had direct experience with this when a friend of ours from the UK (Pakistani parents) came over to visit for a few days. Our group was constantly stopped, and this guy had his passport checked and questions asked many times. We never exerienced this before when we went out with our "white" European friends.

So it doesnt surprise me that the IO's in Germany would behave similarly. Sad but true

[trf0412]

Well, my wife's Greek visa arrived today, just 6 days after making the application.

However, we asked for a 60-day, multiple entry visa. She was given a visa which precisely covers our time in Greece, no more, no less. It was also a single-entry visa.

I thought that since my wife is the spouse of an EU-citizen she has a right to be granted a multiple-entry visa? Or is that not the case? What if we want to go across to Turkey for a week and then come back to Greece? I assume this is now impossible, as she only has a single-entry visa.

I find it appalling that we had to pay £15 to book the appointment, £25 to get a translation of the marriage certificate, £20 to travel down to London, and all they give her is a 20-day, single-entry visa!