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I am a UK citizen registered in Spain with a Moroccan wife exercising treaty rights and holding her Spanish 5yr card. I wish for my wife to obtain a short-stay EEA Family Permit, normally on form VAF5, but now apparently only via an online application, which uses form validation. As far I as I can see, the paper form is 'more reasonable' than the online application in that it recognizes at least some limitations on required information. The trouble with the online version is that it insists for details recognised as unacceptable, including employment info, dates, salary etc. and it also asks for my NI number in the UK. It is not possible to bypass these pages without entering some detail. The dates in particular need to be in valid date format. I think I will follow opinion and some experience from the related post here by plastering "NOT REQUIRED FROM EEA FAMILY MEMBERS" in these spaces, and include a cover letter, however what are people's thoughts on 'faux dates' - dates entered to satisfy the system - 1900?

I'd also appreciate a thought on how far I go for proof of marriage. Our marriage certificate is in Arabic however I do possess an official letter from the British Embassy in Morocco, worded as follows, and first used for the purposes of proving our legal marriage to the Spanish authorities. I quote the relevant text:
"They have submitted an original legalized copy of their marriage certificate to this Embassy. This certificate is recognized by the British Authorities and fulfils the requirements of European Directive 2004/38/CE regarding the right of European Union Citizens and their families to freely circulate."

It references us both by our names, birth details, and place and date of marriage however my wife's ID number and our address were given as Moroccan. Will this letter be acceptable? (along with her Spanish residency card, our passports, and my Spanish NIE certificate)

As a UK citizen you will have to give a least some information to show that you are currently exercising your treaty rights in Spain.

I do not know what the current affair with the online form is. Maybe the data will be entered in a database which will then be compared by the ECO with your own print-out. But I wonder if anybody will look at this before the actual application form is received. Will you actually get an appointment with the embassy or with this private visa application center? The application itself is free and you could just try if you have enough time.

The UK has has admitted (last page, 2nd para) in the past that there is no legal requirement to provide all data.

Thank you. I have since read this post which suggests quite a list of docs. I am not yet properly set up in Spain - I'm going to be setting up a consultancy in due course but there's certainly no paperwork. We are currently living off savings & investments.

Having previously applied for a [free] family Schengen visa in Morocco (pre-Spain residence), requiring only proof of family relationship, it seems I have underestimated the requirements here although I think I understand that this is more about the UK wishing to check my status and I suppose that I'm precisely in line with those laid out by the Surinder Singh decision.

At some stage this will all be possible, perhaps also with an official translation of our arabic marriage act (or perhaps a quickie marriage in Spain!), but not right now. In the online application, there is an option to choose economically "self-sufficient" in place of "employed". What might be the proof required there and would this option not exclude one from being 'economically active' in another EU state?

Here how the HO is currently reading the decision.

Thanks for that link. The refusal wording further down the page is telling:
"ix. The British citizen is not exercising a Treaty right in a Member State (Surinder Singh).........in view of your failure to provide documentary evidence that the British citizen is/was working or self-employed in another Member State prior to returning to/coming to the United Kingdom, I am not satisfied that the Regulations apply in this case."

It appears now all applications in Spain are made online and involve a visit to Madrid to register biometric info (and I suppose drop off the passport and documents). Whilst there is no application fee there is a 14 euro passport return fee, payable in advance by credit card. I have been considering giving this a go anyway but my interests in Spain are not, so far, economic - something the Spanish didn't give 2 hoots about when applying for my wife. So, I am wondering what the minimum I could try offering up might be, as the British national needing to show proof of economic activity. The self-employed registration seems to open up a can of obligations in Spain. Any ideas?

As 86ti suggests, I could just give it a go anyway. I'd be inclined to omit all financial data (for each of us - disposable income, expenses, employer etc.) and just supply a covering letter that stated we wish to travel together for a short stay visit.

So, has anyone tried to use the Surinder Singh route as a self-sufficient with CSI and been refused at national level and appealed it at European level?

It is well established practice that the UK Home Office take every ruling from the ECJ and then re-interpret it in their own way to make the ruling as limiting as possible. I presume the other EEA Governments do the same.

So, for example, if Surinder Singh was a worker the UK's Home Office then say the ruling only applies to workers cos that was the case for Surinder Singh. Even if the ECJ did not say it only applied to workers. ( this is hypothetical as an example)

Seems to be the way, so it's for us to try and cope with it. I just wonder what the minimum is - I'm sure I read that actively looking for work counts as economic activity so can one just register as a job seeker?

tr23uk wrote:Seems to be the way, so it's for us to try and cope with it. I just wonder what the minimum is - I'm sure I read that actively looking for work counts as economic activity so can one just register as a job seeker?

The Danish immigration authorities has a very detailed explanation of this matter.

When is a Union citizen/an EEA national deemed to be a worker under EU law?

It depends on a concrete assessment of the specific circumstances of each case whether a Union citizen/an EEA national, including a Danish national, is deemed to be a worker under EU law. What is crucial is whether a person has had genuine and effective employment. Accordingly, employment appearing to be a mere marginal supplement is excluded from the scope of application of the concept. It is therefore normally a condition that the relevant employment was for at least 10-12 hours a week.

According to the jurisprudence of the European Court of Justice it is normally a requirement that the applicant has been employed for a minimum of 10-12 hours per week, see judgment Kempf (C-139/85) and Megner and Scheffel (C-444/93).

In the case of Kempf the employment in question was 12 hours per week, and in the case of Megner and Scheffel the European Court of Justice has ruled that paid employment where the working hours normally do not exceed 18, 12 or even 10 hours per week do not exclude that the person is regarded a worker under the EU legislation.

In the judgment of Genc (C-14/09) the European Court of Justice established criteria for the purposes of the concrete and individual assessment of whether an employment for less than 10-12 hours per week is genuine and effective. These criteria may be the entitlement to paid leave, remuneration during illness, the duration of the employment, and a collective agreement applies to the employment. The employment in the mentioned case was 5,5 hours per week.

The European Court of Justice did not consider whether a weekly employment of 5,5 hours was sufficient in order to be considered a worker under EU law, or whether the employment was of a merely marginal nature. It was left to the member state to undertake this evaluation.

It is not possible to fix a lower limit for the duration of the employment for assessment purposes.

The European Court of Justice ruled in Franca Ninni-Orasche (C-413/01) that a fixed-term contract of employment for ten weeks was sufficient for the applicant to be a worker under EU law. The case concerned educational grants and led to the issue of guidelines to the local authorities about when a person is deemed to be a worker. The guidelines concern employment relationships for which a short-term contract has been concluded in advance. The guidelines fix a minimum period of ten weeks for such situations. However, it should be emphasised that a concrete assessment must be made in each case.

Accordingly, a concrete and individual assessment must be made in each case, and the ten-week period fixed by the Court in the Ninni-Orasche judgment is thus only to be seen as an example of a situation in which ten weeks of employment were deemed to suffice.

A Union citizen/an EEA national who has permanent employment, but ceases working after less than ten weeks, may satisfy the conditions for being a worker under EU law in certain circumstances, while another person having worked for more than ten weeks may not always satisfy the conditions because it is not genuine work or for other reasons.