Immigration to Europe: A Non-EU migrant's perspective | 28 comments (28 topical, editorial, 0 hidden)

Go in via... (4.00 / 3)

... Sweden or the Netherlands. Once you are legally a permanent resident, you are free to move to and live in any other EU country, if you can find work there. And if the bureaucrats give you any shit about it, you sue. There's an absolutely ironclad precedent from the European Court.

Precisely what happens if you lose your job in the new country of residence without being a full citizen yet isn't quite clear to me. But as long as you're a legal permanent resident (of one of the "old" EU countries - the "new" ones have special rules...), and you have a job, you should be home free.

(Disclaimer: IANAL and this is not legal advice. Contact your local immigration NGO - they know the rules.)

- Jake

Friends come and go. Enemies accumulate.

by JakeS (JangoSierra 'at' gmail 'dot' com) on Sat May 30th, 2009 at 06:13:30 AM EST

Re: Go in via... (4.00 / 2)

The problem so far is that it is legal but not permanent residence. The student status affects that. And reading on the new EU visa that gives freedom of mobility specifically excludes those in student status.

That's my problem, I got locked into student status.

I was actually under the impression that the Netherlands and EU Scandanavian countries were actually more difficult to immigrate to. I had considered Iceland until the meltdown as well as the Czech Republic as I believe the cost of living is lower. But until I can secure the permanent part of the residency, I don't believe I have the freedom of mobility and that I have to start over with the required residency time.

"Schiller sprach zu Goethe, Steck in dem Arsch die Flöte! Goethe sagte zu Schiller, Mein Arsch ist kein Triller!"

by Jeffersonian Democrat (rzg6f@virginia.edu) on Sat May 30th, 2009 at 06:39:03 AM EST
[ Parent ]

Re: Go in via... (none / 1)

Scandinavia is not a unified political entity on the subject of immigration. Sweden is more or less reasonable, but Denmark has gone completely batshit over the last ten years or so.

I have a friend who wanted to bring his American wife into the Union - he went first to Malmö (because he wanted to finish his studies in Copenhagen), then to the Netherlands.

- Jake

Friends come and go. Enemies accumulate.

by JakeS (JangoSierra 'at' gmail 'dot' com) on Sat May 30th, 2009 at 09:07:08 AM EST
[ Parent ]

Re: Go in via... (none / 1)

Yes, I have heard that Scandinavia is much more helpful... at least have been to Bosnian refugees. All tho they may just got that order from USA (like Australia)...

Science without religion is lame, religion without science is blind...Albert Einstein

by vbo on Sat May 30th, 2009 at 09:11:02 AM EST
[ Parent ]

Re: Go in via... (4.00 / 3)

As Jake said, Scandinavia is not a political unit and has quite different policies. There are lots of ex-yugoslavic (mainly from Bosnia) refugees in Sweden. Also notable are the quite large populstion of iraqi refugees.

Sweden has a legacy of immigration since those post-wwII days when swedish industries (standing undamaged and booming from Marshall-help induced orders) sponsored workers (finnish, yugoslavian and italian comes to mind) to move to Sweden and even though policies has gotten quite thighter since the early 1990-ies, it did so from a completedly other level then say Finland (which does only rarely grant asylum to anyone).

I doubt this will help JD, but here is the link to the swedish migration boards pages in english.

Sweden's finest (and perhaps only) collaborative, leftist e-newspaper Synapze.se

by A swedish kind of death on Sat May 30th, 2009 at 04:08:32 PM EST
[ Parent ]

Immigration to Europe: A Non-EU migrant's perspective | 28 comments (28 topical, 0 editorial, 0 hidden)

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