EU/EEA Family Permit Schengen Visa for Portugal in Thailand

[chriswotton]

Hello - I am a British citizen, and have been in a same-sex relationship with a Thai citizen since March 2011 (over six years). We have lived together in Thailand since July 2012 (five years). We plan to travel to Portugal together in early August for a short holiday, and attempted to submit an application for an EU/EEA Family Permit Schengen visa at the Embassy of Portugal in Bangkok a couple of days ago.

We had prepared copies of my current and previous British passports (and I would be happy to submit the original copies, too), copies of rental agreements on the two flats and a house that we have lived in together during our time in Bangkok (we are both named on all three agreements), and a small selection of photos taken during the course of our relationship - as well as the usual documents like copies of my boyfriend's current and previous Thai passports (and the original passports).

However, the Embassy would not accept the application - while the reasons are still pretty unclear, it seems that they considered the documents provided weren't sufficient to demonstrate the basis of our relationship, and then bizarrely went on to also insist that we would still need to provide the usual documents for a short-stay Schengen tourist visa (bank docs/financial support confirmation, confirmed flight bookings, travel medical insurance certificate, hotel reservations, and invitation from the 'host' in Portugal) and even pay the usual tourist visa application fee.

They had previously asked for the address of the apartment we have booked in Portugal to be provided on the application form (despite it being explicitly stated on the application form that this and other details are not required in the case of EU/EEA Family Permit applications - they insisted that they would not be able to input the application into their computer system without the address).

And they also made the suggestion that, in the absence of a marriage certificate that would make proving the basis of our relationship quick and easy (same-sex marriage is not permitted under Thai law, and we're not married under UK or any other law), we should provide some form of affidavit or other document from the British Embassy in Bangkok to confirm the nature of our relationship.

I know this none of this is not right under the terms of the Directive, and I have today e-mailed the Embassy to ask for their further advice on which documents they suggest we submit in order to satisfy them as to the nature of our relationship and so to enable them to accept the EU/EEA Family Permit application - but I wondered if anyone else had encountered a similar situation at a Portuguese or other EU embassy, either in Thailand or elsewhere?

The situation is further complicated by the very little time we now have available to resolve this, since we are due to travel on 03 August. (We weren't able to apply sooner, since the Embassy took weeks to respond to a request for an appointment, and then advised their appointments queue was full for a number of weeks after that - and they seemed to suggest that applying on Monday just gone would still leave us with sufficient time for them to process the application prior to our travel date.)

Many thanks in advance!