[n1231231231234]

Belgium can be equally excruciating. a friend of mine moved from india to belgium. after living here for more than a year, his parents wanted to visit him. the parents have a house in india, family, the father is on a decent indian pension, etc.

it took the belgian embassy about four months to decide on the application. however, to be able to apply, you have to make all your travel arrangements. they didn't anticipate the process to take this long, had to first move, and then cancel their arrangements altogether. in the end, the application got rejected, but the official reasons were cryptic. my friend's interpretation was that the embassy was concerned that his parents might not return to india. they had the option to appeal, which can take 6 to 12 months. chances of appealing successfully are low and so are the chances of getting a visa in a renewed application. in the process, they lost about €3000, which is a lot of money in rupees.

instead of appealing, the parents booked a vacation in the netherlands. the visa application went through in less than a month. they got a schengen visa, meaning that they could also visit belgium. and this is how his parents visited him in the end.

his conclusion was that belgian bureaucracy is out of hand and that the EU has interesting loopholes.

[kurthr]

I have a friend who's a musician, that's been coming to the US to tour a month a year for a decade. This last time his visa got stuck for a full year and even his immigration lawyer couldn't figure out who was holding it up. Instead they applied for the EB-'Eistein visa' which was issued in only 3 weeks so that he could tour. It did take a call from said lawyer reminding them that a US corporation would be losing money if it wasn't done on time.

Still, he was shocked shocked by a quick EB as a weekend strummer with a few regular US gigs. Lawyer cost $6k.