The law and regulations can seem challenging during a danish family reunification, and mistakes can have serious consequences.
The immigration laws in Denmark are one of the most strict in Europe. The result of this is that a group of danish people choose to migrate away from Denmark every year. Many people choose to move across the bridge to Sweden where they can seek family reunification under the Swedish laws, where there are less conditions and terms. Some people then choose to migrate back to Denmark, where they can seek family reunification under the EU law, because they came from Sweden. There is nothing wrong in that. There are certain conditions that have to be met before a residence card can be issued.
EU law states that family member to a danish citizen have the right to stay here in the country besides the 3 months that one can get on a turist visum. The main condition for exercising this right is that the danish citizen have used his/her free movement of workers within EU.
It is called a derivative residence right for the non-danish citizen which comes from the danish citizen (or EU citizen). The family member only get the right in power of the danish citizen.
Derivative residence rights exist in 2 forms:
Primary movement:
- A EU citizen migrates to another EU country.
- The person living here in Denmark is a EU-citizen.
- It must not be a obstacle for the EU-citizen to obtain work in another EU country because of their partners visa/residence situation.
Secondary movement:
- A danish citizen who has lived in another EU country, but moves back to Denmark.
- One must be danish citizen.
- One get to keep their EU-rights, when moving back to Denmark.
In addition to this there are 2 types of family members:
- The inner circle of family (the core family)
- The outer circle of family members.
Different rules and regulations apply to these 2 groups.
The EU citizens family members:
Family members covered within the primary movement
- Registered partner
- Partner in cohabitation
- One of the partners descendants under 21 years of age
- Other descendants who is dependent on the here living person, over 21 years of age.
- Parents financially dependent on their EU citizen son or daughter.
- Other family members in the family who have been dependent on the EU citizen.
These are the common used listed, there are more in the directive from EU.