tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1150882521993032548.post368303499710672647..comments2023-08-24T14:19:01.723+01:00Comments on Ale Riolo's blog: Confusion about EU DirectiveAlessandro Riolohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15588175644785091117noreply@blogger.comBlogger3125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1150882521993032548.post-2816973168854207442008-10-01T13:35:00.000+01:002008-10-01T13:35:00.000+01:00Thank you Alessandro. At least now I know Solvit ...Thank you Alessandro. At least now I know Solvit isn't always as effective as advertised.<BR/><BR/>It's been particularly helpful of you to quote the implementation of the directive in the Spanish and Italian legislation. It would have been hard for me to track this down. It also means there's no point for me to 'testing' the Spanish at the border, at least until they update their legislation.<BR/><BR/>It appears, like with many parts of the implementation of EU freedom of movement, each country makes little errors in incorporating it into their own law. Much of it comes from laziness. I think in the Spanish case their mistake is because they had the Schengen agreement already in their legislation, which the EU directive was originally based on, and they ended up leaving out a few crucial bits when updating this section according to the EU directive.<BR/><BR/>In Gibraltar, they just copied much of their law from UK law, but probably out of convenience decided to simply issue the same residence cards to EU family members as they do for work permit holders already, and not make a distinction.<BR/><BR/>The last 2 year Schengen visa I have received was from the German Embassy in London, but that was shortly before I got my UK EU family residence permit. This time it's getting interesting, and I suspect I'll have to fly in to London to get things done. I'll let you know what I've managed to do.Kriek Joostehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/13300893171209847599noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1150882521993032548.post-60577431673545401672008-10-01T12:41:00.000+01:002008-10-01T12:41:00.000+01:00Dear Kriek,Solvit people didn't replied me, not ev...Dear Kriek,<BR/>Solvit people didn't replied me, not even an acknowledgment. I am thinking of complaining through the European Ombudsman against them, but first I will try to use some other Solvit centre (there is one for nation, perhaps it is only the Italian one which is not really well run).<BR/>As for my wife, your status of being resident in EU as a dependent of a EU citizen should give you freedom of movement in the EU, but the problem is to find the authority that should upheld this right.<BR/>In my wife's case it should be the Italian Republic, but they are refusing to do so. Italian consular authorities, after I was able to involve media and politicians, reluctantly helped my wife to get a 3 months Schengen Visa for Spain, but that's it, and they more or less already hinted the next time they will not help us anymore.<BR/>The point of contention for my wife is that the Spanish law which is implementing the 2004/38/EC Directive, the Real Decreto 240/2007, de 16 de Febrero, esplicitily states in the Artículo 4 that "La posesión de la tarjeta de residencia de familiar de ciudadano de la Unión, válida y en vigor, expedida por un Estado que aplica plenamente el Acuerdo de Schengen, de 14 de junio de 1985, [..] eximirá a dichos miembros de la familia de la obligación de obtener el visado de entrada y, a la presentación de dicha tarjeta, no se requerirá la estampación del sello de entrada o de salida en el pasaporte.".<BR/>As the UK only partially implements the Schengen Agreements, this clearly means that for the Spaniards the dependants of an EU citizen legally residents in UK need a Schengen visa to enter in Spain. As the Italian implementation law doesn't make this distintion, for the Italian authorities my wife is already able to freely travel in Italy, so they aren't going to provide her with a visa.<BR/>In your case, anyway, the Italian law seems to imply that you should be able to enter in Italy without a visa, just on the basis of your UK residence permit, and that if for whatever reason they ask you a visa, they should give your visa application priority against other applications, as the Articolo 5 of the Decreto Legislativo 6 febbraio 2007, n. 30 states that "2. I familiari non aventi la cittadinanza di uno Stato membro sono assoggettati all'obbligo del visto d'ingresso, nei casi in cui e' richiesto. Il possesso della carta di soggiorno di cui all'articolo 10 in corso di validità esonera dall'obbligo di munirsi del visto.<BR/>3. I visti di cui al comma 2 sono rilasciati gratuitamente e con priorità rispetto alle altre richieste."<BR/>The comma 3 is the important bit, for the priority of the visa application. Just to let you know, when my wife was not resident in EU, I successfully used that comma to have the Italian consular authorities to provide her a visa in less than 24 hours.Alessandro Riolohttps://www.blogger.com/profile/15588175644785091117noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1150882521993032548.post-31363957955467919852008-09-30T14:09:00.000+01:002008-09-30T14:09:00.000+01:00Alessandro, I'm curious to know if you have had an...Alessandro, I'm curious to know if you have had any success with Solvit on this issue.<BR/><BR/>I have a roughly similar issue, where I have a UK and Gibraltar residence permit as an EU dependent and my Schengen visa is about to expire. The honourary Italian consulate in Gibraltar doesn't want to accept my Schengen application until my old one has run out, and then they take 4-5 weeks to process it. That assuming they will even process it since I have residence permits already.<BR/><BR/>EU Direct, and the EU Directive, says I don't need a Schengen visa if I have a Gibraltar residence permit as a EU family member, but Gibraltar's residence permit makes no distinction between family members or work permit holders, so the Spanish border authorities have no way to know my status for sure. I still need to test them with my UK residence permit upon entry.Kriek Joostehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/13300893171209847599noreply@blogger.com