Dear editors,
I am a man of 70 years old and deregistered from the Netherlands. I want to return to the EU for health and insurance reasons. Would you like to settle in Portugal. My Thai girlfriend lived in the Netherlands from 2001 to 2013 and then went back due to family circumstances and deregistered. She had a residence permit until 2015. Meets all MVV requirements.
I would like to take her with me, we have been together for 20 years. How do I do this?
Yours faithfully,
Burt
Dear Burt,
Unfortunately, there are few options and she will have to go through the Portuguese migration procedure with you when migrating to Portugal. Her Dutch residence status has now expired or may even have been withdrawn. Even if she had had her residence permit converted to 'Indefinite residence EU citizen' or (had she been married to you) 'Permanent residence citizens of the Union' at the time, this would no longer be of any use to her because her residence status has simply expired or been revoked is.
There is therefore no other option than to inquire about the migration rules at the Portuguese immigration service. you must therefore turn to the 'Portuguese Immigration Service' (Serviço de Estrangeiros e Fronteiras, SEF). I am not familiar with Portuguese immigration rules. The big question is whether your girlfriend can migrate to Portugal independently OR on the basis of an unmarried relationship with you. In general, EU countries have no rules for the immigration of unmarried partners, so there is a kind of 'fidelity duty'.
I therefore advise you to contact the Portuguese. An e-mail or telephone call to the Portuguese embassy may help you on your way, but these are of course only a conduit, as the Portuguese immigration service is the primary agency involved.
Official websites with more information about immigration to Portugal:
- http://www.sef.pt/portal/V10/
- http://www.imigrante.pt/
If you get married with your partner:
If you 'have to' get married to get her to Portugal, you do have the advantage that you fall under flexible EU regulations. Namely EU Directive 2004/38/EC Free movement for family members of a citizen of the Union. In the immigration handbook on this blog I also briefly mention this on page 8 under the heading 'HELP, we cannot meet the requirements, what now?'.
In short, it comes down to the fact that provided you can demonstrate that there is a legally valid and sincere marriage (i.e. a legally valid marriage concluded anywhere in the world without fraudulent intentions), that the identity of both of you is known and then the non - EU partner will join the EU partner (in an EU country other than the country of which the EU citizen has the nationality), that they must be given all the facilities to be able to do so: a free visa, issued smoothly and quickly and all questions with an asterisk (*) unanswered on the Schengen visa application form.
Long-term residence (read: immigration) is allowed provided that you are not an unreasonable burden on the state. If you have enough income to get by, the Portuguese should not get in your way. If you are going to do this route you will have to get married, and in almost all cases have the (Thai) marriage certificate translated into a language that the Portuguese understand and legalize the original and the translation and. This also applies to the (Thai) birth certificate: translate and have the translation and original legalized. More information can be found among others p[
- http://europa.eu/youreurope/
- http://ec.europa.eu/dgs/home-
- http://ec.europa.eu/
If she had been naturalized as a Dutch citizen when she lived in the Netherlands (which can in principle be done while retaining her Thai nationality by invoking serious financial consequences or -easily- invoking a marriage with a Dutch person), she would have, just like you, can now settle freely anywhere in Europe. But that's in hindsight. The advice is therefore to immigrants to always try to obtain the best possible residence status, but the government does not provide this to you on a platter and you have to take the back seat yourself.
The story above also applies if you want to migrate to a country other than the Netherlands or Portugal. If you are going to immigrate to the Netherlands with your girlfriend instead of Portugal, then read the file on this blog about 'immigration Thai partner' and then inquire at the IND. I think Belgium does allow immigration of an unmarried non-EU partner, but is that on you?
If after all this you still can't figure out which way to go, then I advise you to join the forumwww.buitenlandsepartner.nl to ask for advice.
Good luck,
Rob
Other sources/citations: www.thailandblog.nl/wp-