Moldovan and Spanish Schengen Visa

[Mykap]

CAn anyone help or advise from experience? I am a UK citizen, I own a villa in Spain - I do not own property in the UK anymore. I am married to a Moldovan girl.

We need a schengen visa so she can be with me in Spain. ( I work on rotation in Kazakhstan).

She is being refused even application review in both the German and French embasies in Moldova - both staffs saying go to the Spanish embassy in Romania.

I thought any shengen embassy can issue for a non shengen country not represented in the country of application.

Any thoughts experiences will be apreciated.

[Wanderer]

CAn anyone help or advise from experience? I am a UK citizen, I own a villa in Spain - I do not own property in the UK anymore. I am married to a Moldovan girl.

We need a schengen visa so she can be with me in Spain. ( I work on rotation in Kazakhstan).

She is being refused even application review in both the German and French embasies in Moldova - both staffs saying go to the Spanish embassy in Romania.

I thought any shengen embassy can issue for a non shengen country not represented in the country of application.

Any thoughts experiences will be apreciated.

It is true but they want u to spend you tourist money with then not some other state so they tend to get a bit arsy about it.

Wait for the experts but according to EU Directive she doesn't need a visa at all, just ID and be accompanied by her spouse, ie you! Trouble is the officials at the ports of entry etc arent aware of this.

[Christophe]

Wait for the experts but according to EU Directive she doesn't need a visa at all, just ID and be accompanied by her spouse, ie you! Trouble is the officials at the ports of entry etc arent aware of this.

Not only the officials at the ports of entry but also the airline employees who check passengers in. So while it may be true in theory that no visa is needed, for an easy life (especially if there are going to be frequent trips) it would make sense to get a visa.

(Just as an aside and off-topic, really: one of the benefits of the unified Schengen visa process is supposed to be simplification of travel arrangements. Yet, from the experience of people who post on these boards, any applicant for a Schengen visa who is in a situation that is even slightly outside the usual has inordinate difficulties and uncertainties in applying - it seems to me that the system is really not working as it ought to be...)

[Directive/2004/38/EC]

Contact the people at the EU's Solvit. They should be able to help.

http://eumovement.wordpress.com/help-eu-solvit/

[Mykap]

Wow - thanks for the responses - sometimes I think I am the only Brit to have married a Moldovan!

I have tried Solvit - which I had never heard of - and will post result.

Agree with comments on the schengen process - how can it be that illegally entering Europe is actually easier than following the rules, until this is sorted there will always be an issue.

[Mykap]

Following received from Solvit.

"As the application is being made from outside of the EU, strictly speaking the complaint is not about free movement between MS and is therefore outside of the remit of SOLVIT, but I am making enquiries about the situation in Moldova, whether the Spanish Authorities have an arrangement with another Embassy, I am not aware of a Schengen rule that a Member State can issue a visa in respect of travel to another Member State, most Member States will ask for evidence of travel to their territory before they will issue a visa."

So back to square one. We can get a UK visitors visa no problem so I will now arrange a trip to France from UK and arrange for a French Schengen visa issued in Moldova in order to get my wife into Europe then Spain. At least Easyjet fares are cheap.... Ridiculous - its not supposed to be like this.

[mym]

Following received from Solvit.

"... most Member States will ask for evidence of travel to their territory before they will issue a visa."

Interesting. As far as I am aware the Directive expressly specifies that you do *not* need to prove proof of travel arrangements to get a visa for a non-EU spouse travelling with/to you.

[Dawie]

CAn anyone help or advise from experience? I am a UK citizen, I own a villa in Spain - I do not own property in the UK anymore. I am married to a Moldovan girl.

We need a schengen visa so she can be with me in Spain. ( I work on rotation in Kazakhstan).

She is being refused even application review in both the German and French embasies in Moldova - both staffs saying go to the Spanish embassy in Romania.

I thought any shengen embassy can issue for a non shengen country not represented in the country of application.

Any thoughts experiences will be apreciated.

You can only apply for a Schengen visa from the country's embassy that you are visiting. The French and German embassies are not interested in issuing visas to visit Spain.

[Mykap]

This was comfirmed today by Solvit ...

'There is no bilateral agreement between Spain and other Member States that would enable another Member State to issue a visa to enter the Spanish territory, nor is there any obligation in Schengen rules that there should be such an agreement. The advice that you have received is correct, your wife will have to go to the Spanish Embassy, not the Consulate, in Bucharest'

The consequences are that any Moldovian citizen wishing to legally visit Spain has to enter through Germany or France in order to get a visa. Getting a visa to visit Romania from Moldova takes about a month with all the associated costs.

So its UK then france for us - just to get to my villa in Spain......

[Mykap]

Just to round off this story..
I am a UK citizen who works in kazakhstan and lives in Spain. I have a Moldovan wife. As there is no Spanish embassy in Moldova it has proved impossible to get a Spanish Shengen visa.

The solution has been to get a UK visit visa. Then gt tickets in and out of France by Easy Jet (cheap) and booked a weekend in Paris. Then applied for a French Shengen visa at the French embassy in Moldova. with the right paperwork (read in and out tickets) it was no problem. We can now go to the UK to see family then have a weekend in Paris and then travel down to my villa in Spain.

Just a note on the performance of the embassies in Moldova. The UK embassy through my spouse out demanding a letter of invitation and bank statements from me. It took a long international phone call to the mission to sort this clear breach of the rules out, having said that when my (rather upset) wife returned to the embassy the staff were helpful and the visa was issued the same day (6 month multi entry visit visa). The French embassy staff we very polite and a 6 month multi entry Shengen visa was issued in 5 days.

Hopefully the next round of applications in 6 months will be easier.
It really shouldn't be this complicated!