Can my Mother-in-law stay with us?

Hi all,

I am a British citizen living in Sweden with my non-eu husband. We both have residency in Sweden. We have a son who is also British national and has a residence permit. My mother-in-law who is a non-eu national is coming over on a short term schengen visa (visa only issued for 21 days). Currently I am the only one who is working and my husband is staying home with the baby. My husband wants to go back to work and we were wondering if it is possible that we can prolong my mother-in-law's stay so she can look after our son as child care under 1 year is unavailable unless you pay a private nanny. Can she switch from short term schengen visa to residence card or a longer term visa when she comes to visit us? We send her money via western union almost every month so she is kinda dependent on us.

Many Thanks in advance for any replies.

If she is financially dependant on you she should be able to receive a residence card. I would think it should not be necessary to show a dependency in the past (Article 2d of Directive 2004/38/EC only mentions dependency without further conditions) but I have no idea what the Swedish government thinks about such cases. They may expect at least a substantial monetary contribution. You may also have to prepare an affidavit or similar but I suppose the relevant authorities will tell if so.

Hi Thanks for the reply. Do you think we can apply for residence card as soon as she gets here even though she only has a visa for 21 days? What do you mean by ''dependency without further conditions''. I have read the directive and it doesn't explain much so i am left a little confused. This forum is a great help but haven't read much regarding our scenario!

Thanks in advance.

All the Directive mentions is that family members in ascending order must be dependant, nothing else. Contrast this to Article 3 where extended family members must have a 'history' in the relationship to the EEA national, e.g. dependency must have been a fact for some time at least. Therefore, I would think that it should suffice that your mother-in-law is a dependant at the time of application. But that may be just my opinion. The Swedish authorities may also take the view that she entered on a Schengen C visa which implies that she must have proven her intent to return. Obviously she won't do that.

I hope you'll get some input from someone with similar experience. Maybe you also want to consult a legal advisor who is well versed in EU law.