Ægteskabudengrænser.dk

Hi. My name is Luiz, I'm 23 and brazilian. My girlfriend is danish, and 18, we started talking through internet and we are together for 6 months. The only country in Europe I could get a visa was Ireland, so I'm studying here, which allows me to get closer to her and visit her every month, while she can come here sometimes too. I know we are very young but the only possibility for us to live together would be through marriage. We started reading about requirements to live in Denmark and they not just don't seem very encouraging but also doesn't seem likely to change soon. Since she's just entering college, she can't move to Ireland because the universities here are too expensive. After reading about several people in the same situation who move to Sweden, we were thinking of this possibility. I don't how to do, where to start, and my girlfriend talked to me about this forum, where a lot of nice people could help us (: .

I don't know anything about it because the official government pages about this topic are very confusing and different from what happens in practice. Also I'd like to hear advices from people who had or heard similar stories.

Welcome to this forum.

Well, it you mix the national regulations and the EU regulations on family reunification, you might very likely be confused. So try not to do that.

If you only take a look at the national regulations, there is a lot of requirements. Including the rule that both parts has to be above 24 years of age. Your girlfriend is not there yet, so the national regulation is a closed gate for you.

Then we can take a look at the EU regulations. The requirements there is, that she moves to another member state, i.e. Ireland or Sweden and that you are married. She also have to prove, that she can provide financial support for both herself and yourself. Then you can apply for a residence card according to the EU regulations in that member state. After she has been in that other member state for at least 3-6 month and she can prove that she actually has been settled and living there, both of you can move to Denmark together. And then you are to apply for a new residence card within 3 month, counted from the date you moved to Denmark. All the requirements according the national regulations is gone: No 24 year rule, no country-connection rule, no banking guarantee, no point system to fullfill, etc. The only requirements that remains is a housing requirement and a self-support requirement.

Sorry but I don't understand why your Danish girlfriend can't simply move to Ireland to study?

As an EU citizen, your girlfriend will be treated on an equal basis as an Irish citizen when applying for studies. She might also be able to go there as an exchange student.

I don't know, skaneebo, for danes, but higher education here in Ireland is not free, actually, it's very expensive, even for irish people and I'm not sure if she can afford supporting herself AND paying these tuition fees.

Kim Nyberg, what would be accepted as a prove that we can support ourselves? A certain amount in a bank account would be enough or do we need to get a job paying a certain wage? I know you can't speak about irish rules so i will check them by myself. But how would it be in Denmark/Sweden?

lcfreitasf skrev:I don't know, skaneebo, for danes, but higher education here in Ireland is not free, actually, it's very expensive, even for irish people and I'm not sure if she can afford supporting herself AND paying these tuition fees.

If she is already studying in Denmark, she could look into the possibility of going to Ireland as an exchange student. Exchange students don't pay any tuition fees.

To have a right to live in another EU-country for more than 3 month, a union citizen need to be one of the following:

a) A worker - requires at least a part time job i.e. 10-12 hours pr. week

b) A student - requires enrollment at a study and signing a declaration of intend to support yourself and your family during the stay, and after that staying away from the social benefit office

c) A self sufficient person - requires sufficient means of some sort comparable to the lowest social benefit, so that you and your family wont have to draw on that

Kim mentioned possibility c), but this is only really relevant, if your girlfriend establish herself in Sweden or Germany and continue to work or study in Denmark. This is what most danish-foreign cupples do. But if she move to Ireland, it will obviously need to be either a) or b), since she can not continue to work or study in Denmark while living there.

In ÆUG a lot of focus is often put on situation c), because so many danish-foreign cupples use this option. But actually the free movement in EU is much more intended for situation a) and b), and these options are used far more by anybody else than those, who move primarily in order to be able to live with their spouses from outside the EU.

Being a worker is by the far the most advantageous option, if you and your girlfriend wants to move to Denmark after staying for a while in e.g. Ireland. A returning worker doesn´t need to even be able to support herself or her family, so you will be able to stay in Denmark on almost completely equal terms with danish citizens and even receive social benefit should this become necessary due to a social event of some sort.

So becoming an exchange student in Ireland is definitly an option for your girlfriend. But if she can find a job there for at least 10 weeks, even just a part-time job cleaning at a hotel or working as a dishwasher at a restaurant, this is in many ways the ideal way to do it, and something that far more danish-foreing cupples should consider. Of course she can also find a job in any other EU-country, and then you can follow there. But since you are already in Ireland, working or studying in Ireland seems like the most obvious option for your girlfriend, since for starters she wont need to spend time and money finding a place to live as well as a place to work or study.

@fundiver,

When I wrote it, I was well aware, that the Danish woman cannot reside in Ireland and study in Denmark at the same time, so actually - just for short - I delieberately wrote "self-sufficiant" in the meaning a), b) and c) all together.

@lcfreitasf,

Here in the English forum, I have already put a link to a guide, made by the EU Commision. It is a 40 pages pdf. file. viewtopic.php?f=17&t=9460 In the guide, you can find a lot of answers on the basic questions of how to reside and what your rights are. I can warmly recommend it

Thanks Kim, I will take a look at it when I come back home. As a student in Ireland, I can work up to 20 hours per week, what allows me to support myself. For some strange reason, there are quite a lot of jobs for danish speakers in Ireland, and this would help us too. My girlfriend is considering taking her year-off in Ireland before college. I don't know what are the requirements, but I know and heard of several people in a more delicate situation than mine (jobless people, without money in bank) that got to marry and irish/eu citizen here.

So, my situation here is: I'm here studying for 1 year, and can renew this visa for up to 3 years or 7 if i enter college (what i don't consider because of the sky high irish tuition fees). While this, I can work part-time. I have some savings at bank too. If I'm employed, would it be enough? I don't know if would be better marrying here in Ireland during this year off and then moving to Sweden, or marrying straight away there, where she would have to prove that can support both of us alone.

Also thanks for your help, you guys are being very handy. My girlfriend will come here ask some questions, she's just a little bit shy

@Icfreitasf

You already have a residence permit in Ireland, so it is only your girlfriend, who need to get a registration card by proving, that she is a worker, student or self sufficient person. In theory she could perhaps be a self sufficient person by being supported by you, but this seems to me to be a rather fragile situation, so it is much better, that she simply find a job or a place to study in Ireland. If she study, she can bring her danish SU and SU-loans, which will already cover her basic costs of living and in particular, since you will be to people to share expenses for rent etc.

@Kim

I appreciate that, but the problem is, that it is somewhat misleading to pool all three situations together, since there is no requirement, that a migrant worker must by necessity be selfsufficient. It is in theory possible to work eg. 12 hours pr. week, not earn enough to support yourself and your familly, and still have a right to residence, and after 3 month even a right to receive social benefit to cover part of your basic cost of living.

So in a situation as this, the union citizen wanting to move to another EU-contry doesn`t need to find a job, which will give her a certain income. She just need to find any job at all, which is not a completely marginal supplement like e.g. babysitting 1 or 2 evenings every month.

fundiver199 skrev:@Icfreitasf

You already have a residence permit in Ireland, so it is only your girlfriend, who need to get a registration card by proving, that she is a worker, student or self sufficient person. In theory she could perhaps be a self sufficient person by being supported by you, but this seems to me to be a rather fragile situation, so it is much better, that she simply find a job or a place to study in Ireland. If she study, she can bring her danish SU and SU-loans, which will already cover her basic costs of living and in particular, since you will be to people to share expenses for rent etc.

Thanks, fundiver. Just to clarify: my residence permit is temporary, for 1 year only, but i can renew it for two more. But while i'm with a student visa I can only work legally 20 hours per week in temporary contracts, what is not a good situation and I want to get rid of this situation and be able to start a career as soon as possible.

We don't plan to settle in Ireland at all, would be better for her to live in Malmö (if it's not possible to live in Denmark) so she can be close to her family. Once we are married in Ireland, what would we need to do to live in Sweden?

If you have lived together in Ireland for a certain periode of time, then you can also use the EU-rules in Denmark, so no need to move to Sweden. But of course if your girlfriend is completely unable to find a job in Ireland or to take part of her education in Ireland, moving to Sweden as a cross border worker/student is also a possibility. But obviously she will need to find a place to stay in Sweden then, which in the experience of many people is easier said than done, and in particular in you are very young and don`t have a permanent job and a stable income.

So thats why I suggest, that it might be easier and better for her to find a job in Ireland, so that she can just stay in your aparment while working there for at least 10 weeks and thereby become a migrant worker in terms of the EU-law, allowing her to bring her husband with her, when she move back to Denmark. But its up to you and your girlfriend, which solution you find suits you best.

One advantage of "the swedish solution" is, that you don`t need to get married, if you apply by national swedish rules. But your girlfriend will then need to live alone in Sweden for maybe 9 month, while you stay in Ireland and wait for the application to be processed. So again: its up to you and your girlfriend to determine together, which solution suits you best, when factoring in all pros and cons.

Its a bit like determining weather to serve turkey or duck for christmas eve, and if there should be a dessert or not. You can make that kind of decision for yourself, but its really difficult to advice others, what they should do. Which is why in ÆUG our main objective is to inform people about the rules, so that they can then make their own decisions on an informed basis.

fundiver199, thanks. I just found out a Citizen Information Centre here, that could give me more information about this.

I really thank you and other guys in this forum for what you are doing. I don't want to sound cheesy, but you are helping lots of people that want to come to Denmark with the best of intentions, to work, raise a family, to live honestly, and it's a shame to make it so hard for these people to get a basic right. It's hard for us to get informations from police, immigration officers, they don't have the necessary patience and always treat us with prejudice. Lawyers are expensive, and there are a lot of charlatans in this bussiness. If Denmark has people like Pia Kjærsgaard, it also has people like you, and that's why I'm starting to fall in love with this country almost as much as I love my girlfriend.

So far, that's all I need. If I need more information, I'll revive this topic to ask you instead of creating a new one. Also, any useful new thing I discover I'll be happy to share with people that are in the same situation as us

(: mange tak

Hello back guys, would like to revive this post and keep asking a few questions if you don't mind.

I don't know if it's mine complete incompetence or the awful economical situation of Ireland, but I haven't worked a single hour in one year, relying on my funds, which will are drying up, and this makes us a bit skeptical that it would be any easy for her to find a job in Ireland.

We've been reading an amazing pdf produced by the people of this amazing organization (congratulations for that, by the way, I only would think that it would be of an amazing help if this was also translated for English, we could even do that) and considering moving to Malmö, where she could keep studying and receiving the student allowance. There are a few questions that arise about that.
First of all, about the supporting requirements. Would this student allowance and any other welfare payments qualify for this? The document talks about a requirement of around 6000 SEK after paying the bills. This is around what she would receive, so all that would be needed was finding a small job, which I presume would be much easier in Malmö than in Dublin given the current situation of each country. If not, is, considering you personal experiences, any possible to fulfill this with the jobs that a young, ungraduated couple have within their reach?
Second, about finding a place to live in Sweden. According to what I have read, it's a GIGANTIC pain in the arse, and a friend of mine studying in Goteborg speaks of people taking years, yes, years, to find a definite place to live. Does renting a room in a shared apartment qualifies for the accommodation requirements? We possibly could afford renting a cheap apartment, but the amount of red tape, paperwork and stuff described really scares me.
If possible, I would love to hear stories of people who done it before. She would be ready to move in June or July and I really don't know what should we be doing right now. I will possibly be able to stay in Ireland until March 2014 but this whole situation, the insecurity, the distance, is really annoying and we really want to solve it as soon as possible. I know that it's too much laziness asking for a "step by step" guide, but by what you know and heard of, which of the paths we have would end this sooner?

Hey, welcome back!

The PDF file you mention sounds a bit dated. As far as I know ÆUG hasn't made any such PDF's for years.

Anyways, the amount needed for costs of living (food, clothing, and such) to qualify using EU laws for a couple today would be around 6,200-6,300 SEK.

If your girlfriend takes out the student loan as well that would count too (total amount she would get would then presumably be around 7,500 DKK).

But given that Swedish authorities have complicated matters in recent times the best option seem to be to apply using national Swedish laws instead of EU laws. There are no requirements whatsoever if you apply by Swedish laws except for the two of you being in love and having an established relationship. Your girlfriend would not be asked to provide any amount of money at all and you would be able to get social welfare in Sweden in case you don't have enough means to provide for yourself.

The only drawback to using national Swedish laws is that your girlfriend must first move to Sweden and settle, getting a Swedish personal number, and then you will have to apply from Ireland via the website of the Swedish Migration Board or the Swedish embassy and wait there until your application for a residence permit has been granted.

And yes finding a place to stay around the big cities in Sweden is difficult but it's not impossible, espcially if you can do with just a room or if you're prepared to live in the suburbs. A simple room is all you need to register with your address in Sweden at the people's registry office.