Dear Friends

I am a UK citizen and have my B permit. My wife is non EU citizen and we filed for her family reunion visa from London beginning Feb. At the same time, I also had submitted a request with Bern canton inviting my wife.

2 days ago, I got a letter from Bern canton confirming they have received my wife's application at London embassy and they wanted me to answer 7 questions in writing which are below:

1. Do we have kids?
2. What would my wife do in Switzerland?
3. Where do her relatives (mother, father, brother, sister) live? If in Swiss, give addresses?
4. Does she speak any of three key languages of Switzerland?
5. Has she been a resident in Swiss before?
6. How big is my apartment and provide copy of tenancy agreement?
7. I should give my email/mobile number etc?

Now, I am a bit surprised by this? Has anyone had similar experience? From what I knew was that as spouse of EU national, she will have identical rights to me and the visa is just a formality. Also, that she get the same permit as I do.

But what I do not understand is why do they ask what she wants to do? If she speaks any local language? Her family etc.

Also, they said after these answers, they should be able to decide on my wife's visa. Well, this really sounds strange to me. Can thy say no to it? I am having a decent, well paying, senior management position in Bern.

As always, your help is highly appreciates.

Regards

PS: Dear Swissbob, your expert advice will be very much appreciated. Many thanks.

Switzerland is not EU.

Correct. Except:

• where a marriage of convenience is suspected, then they may dig further like this
• if you recently got married that could trigger these questions.
• if your wife is from a country such as Cuba or Iran this can also cause such questions.

They would have to have an extremely good reason to deny her permit so just answer the questions and you should be fine.

We got married 3 year ago.
She has an Indian passport. Not sure if this is the reason. But if so, this may be pretty discriminatory, I must admit.
Thanks for your quick response.

I very much doubt that "Bern" referred to the country as "Swiss".

They can ask these questions. Do you want her to live in Switzerland or not??

The letter was in German. I somehow transalted it using google. I believe it might mean Switzerland.