| The situation is kind of similar in my country (France). My partner and I lived together in Czech Republic for 7 years where I was working as a scientist (EU to EU, pretty much no paperwork involved). She is american and obtained a "partner of EU citizen" long stay permit. We decided to move back to France and now we have to deal with bureaucracy and it is exhausting. There are many paths by which an non-EU citizen can get residency in europe and it includes: - Student visa (9 months, needs to apply long in advance)
- Entrepreneur (need to pitch a business, needs 30k€ of savings)
- Refugee
- Married (the easiest one)
- Family member of EU citizen (only applies when the EU citizen is not native to the country you apply to)
- Family member of native citizen We had to apply to the last one, because we only have a civil union (it's a french thing called PACS and it's not recognized as a "proper" union for permits). We also needed to prove that we had lived together for more than a year (which we also had to do in Czech Republic) so that she could get her one year permit. The fees are opaque (the website says 350€ of tax + 100 € of processing fee but the final bill was 650€). Any document must be translated (cost us around 1000€) and official documents must be verified by apostille (which we learned when we celebrated our civil union in at the french embassy in Czech Republic). At the end of her permit, she will need to validate an A2 level of profciency in french to apply for a multi year permit (2 to 4 years). Once she has lived 5 years here, she can apply for a permanent residency if she has a B2 level, pass a civil exam and show proofs of involvement in civic life. All of this to say that the requirements to immigrate in Europe require either a lot of money or a lot of dedication. This really changed my view on the whole "Europe has free border, anybody can get in to steal our job" rhetoric. |