Ægteskabudengrænser.dk

Hello there dear Æug friends,

I have the opportunity of taking a paid internship in the UK from the 1st of July to the end of September, roughly 3 months. The hiring company does not want to be involved in any kind of sponsorship or help regarding visa.

The only visa I think I can apply for is the Family permit for EEA family members (I am married to a Danish citizen). I have already been granted this visa once just to go visit London. However, I don't know if this visa will allow me to take a temporary job such as the internship opportunity, and this is what I would like to ask here.

We live in Sweden and I hold a residence card, which clearly states I can only work in Sweden. But since the UK has slightly different rules (because is not a Schengen country) I am hoping there is a chance for me to be allowed to work there temporarily.

I appreciate any guidance you may be able to give me.

Best,

Onita

You can only work and live in the UK if your Danish spouse joins you to the UK to live.

Ok, so only if I apply for a visa to live and work in the UK with my Danish partner can I take the internship opportunity offered to me?

I don't want to make such an application, we want to keep our address in Sweden (we have been here 1.5 years and want to keep counting to 5) and since a visa for living in the UK would kick start the counting process to zero...I guess I cannot take the offer.

Is there not any other way of doing it?

Thanks for your time again, I'm just a bit frustrated here...

You cannot use EU laws to take up work in the UK, anymore than you cannot legally work in Denmark, even though you live in Sweden. You can, however, apply through the British rules on obtaining a work permit but I have no idea what they might be.

Hello there again,

I have a follow up question regarding spending time in London. The situation is as follows, I am in London now and my Family Permit visa will run out in August 28th. I am planning to stay in the UK until November because I am doing an internship, it is not a possibility to go back to Sweden and apply again for the family permit visa because the application takes almost a month. The UK border agency says I could apply for a residence card in the UK (EEA2 from in their website), I am not interested in this because I have a residence card in Sweden and have no intention of living in the UK, but anyways the application takes 6 months in the UK which means I could end it when I need to leave the UK in November. I find this option problematic because I am afraid it could affect negatively my residence permit in Sweden. I don't know how often migration offices among Eu countries talk to each other, but I just don't want to lose my residence in Sweden. Can you offer any advice on this?

Another question I have is how bad would it be if I stay in the UK until November without applying for any type of residence card? in the guiding notes of the EEA2 application it says a family member of an EU national does not need to apply for a residence permit, they suggest its a good idea because then it is easier to proof my rights. Isn't my residence card for Sweden enough proof of my rights in the UK? I mean it was given to me because I am married to a Danish citizen, and I have the EU blue health card...what are the risks I would be taking? could it for example mean I won't be able to visit the UK again?

Thank you for your help!

I find it somewhat pussling, that you have been told, you can apply for an EU residence card in the UK, when your husband is not with you but still staying home in Sweden. However if british authorities are willing to let you apply for a residence card, then you should certainly do it.

Having a british residence card or at least having applied for it does not in any way affect your rights in Sweden. So even if Swedish authorities find out, that you have applied for a british residence card – which in all likelihood they wont – this is not a problem at all. Particularly since your planned stay in the UK – as far as I can count – is less than 6 month. And therefore it is neither long enough to delay your right to permanent residenceship in Sweden, nor is it long enough, that you are obliged to deregister your address in Sweden at Skatteværket. So there is no problem at all in swedish authorities knowing, that you have spend 5 month or so in the UK.

On the other hand if you overstay your visa in the UK without applying for a residence card or in any other way legalize your stay, this could certainly have adverse consequences in the form of you not being allowed into the UK again for the foreseeable future.

So it is really a complete no-brainer, that you should hand in an application for EU residence card in the UK, if british authorities will allow you to do so even without the presence of your husband. And since your planned stay is only 5 month, the residence card will only be issued for 5 month (or rather the remainder of the 5 month) and not 5 years like your swedish one. So when you go back to Sweden, it will expire soon after, and you can just throw it away like eg. a used plane ticket.

Dear fundiver,

Thanks for such a relieving reply! I certainly do not want to stay in the UK illegally, or risk losing my Swedish residence card. Which brings me to my next question do you know how long can I be outside of Sweden during one year and still keep my residence card? we are planning to visit my family in South America after our time in London, we would like to be there 2 months, so I would be out of Sweden for 6 - 7 months.

Also, I just wanted to share that my husband is with me in the UK.

Thank you again!

If you are outside Sweden for more than 6 month consecutively, you are in theory obliged to deregister at Skatteværket. And this could then in turn lead to Migrationsverket nullifying your residence card. In which case you would need to apply for a new residence card, when you want to live in Sweden again, as well as a schengen visa to be able to reenter the Schengen area.

However if you simply fail to deregister at Skatteverket, I seriously dought, anything will happen, just because you have been away for 7 month, as long as you are not receiving social welfare in Sweden or unemployment benefit, which require you to be present in Sweden.

You might have to accept though, that the 7 month will not be counted, when you want to apply for a permanent residence card in Sweden after 5 years, so that you will only be able to get this after 5 years and 7 month total.

If you go back to Sweden, before you continue to South Africa, it is up for debate, how long you need to stay home, before your staying abroard can be considered as two separate stays, each of which lasted less than 6 month. It definitly needs to be more than a day or two, but there really aren`t any solid and hard rules to lean on.

All in all I wouldn´t worry to much about this though, since the duration of your total stay abroard is only marginally more than 6 month, since it will presumably only be this one time, and since the potential consequences are fairly minor, since you can never lose your right to residence in Sweden but only postpone your right to permanent (unconditional) residence.

Having your residence card nullified and having to apply for a new one would for sure be an inconvenience. However I will consider this a very low risk possibility, since Migrationsverket is very busy and really don´t have time to sit and look carefully at, how long 10.000`s of people have been outside Sweden, so that they can rush out and nullify a residence card.

It doesn`t really hurt Sweden, if people staying outside Sweden have a swedish residence card, since they can not be a burden to society, while they are not in Sweden. And at the core immigration control is about regulating, who is entitled to work in the country and to benefit from the tax financed welfare system. Not who can enter the country without applying for a visa, which is the only benefit, your swedish residence card gives you, as long as you are not in Sweden. And which is essentially no more, than any citizen of the US, Brasil, Japan or many other countries can also do, since they are visa free in Schengen.

Wow! thank you for our thorough replies fundiver.

6 - 7 extra months to apply for a permanent residence is manageable, but I still wonder if I could justify that those months are very connected to my life in Sweden? I am staying in London for 4 months because it is part of my study requirements in Sweden, I am taking an internship (praktik) otherwise I cannot graduate, and it is better if the praktik is out of Sweden. And while in South America I will do research (interview people, basically) for my thesis, which is also a study requirement. Do you think I could argue that my time away from Sweden is very connected to my life in Sweden and ask them to count it inside the 5 years?

Another thing I am confused about is, why is overstaying in the UK - without a family permit or a residence card - illegal? I don't understand this because the UK border agency website, specifically in the EEA2 form (http://www.ukba.homeoffice.gov.uk/sitec ... /eea21.pdf) says a family member of a EEA national do not need to make an application. Why is it illegal? and Why would it create problems when I want to enter the UK again in the future?

I am sorry if this questions are tiring for you, but I feel they (the uk border agency people) give contradictory information and this is making me very confused!

Thank you again,

Onita_

Well apparently the UK does not require non-EU Family member with residence right to apply for a residence card. That is very strange, since such a requirement is an instrumental part of directive 2004/38 EU and - as far as I know - is made in all the other 26 (or 27 including the new member state Croatia) EU-countries.

I have no idea, why there is this peculiarity to the British legislation, and if you want to know, you will have to ask there. But yes it does seem - much to my amazement - that the UK unlike all other EU-countries actually does not require you to apply for a residence card, even though you intend to stay for more than 3 month.