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Hello Gurus

Recently I have been going thru procedures of visa for British citizens(who acquired via naturalization) spouse visa to UK esp for Non-EEA nationals(eg Indian spouse etc). I could see that they have to pay fee of £600 to apply for 2.5 year visa and British citizen should have minimum earnings to apply for spouse visa.
However for EEA national( eg Germany, France) spouse(non- EEA national eg Indian) visa to UK - there is minimal fee of £55 for UK residence permit( to work otherwise thats also free) and there is no need of any minmal earnings required for EEA national in UK. And spouse can get 5 year visa directly to UK.
Somehow this appears weird to me as British citizen to bring his spouse to his own country UK he he has to prove earnings and pay huge fee of £600 for just 2.5 years whereas an EEA national can bring his spouse for free to UK and that too with 5 year visa.
Can someone tell why this bias for British citizens?

Cheers
haris

Haris2108 wrote:Hello Gurus

Recently I have been going thru procedures of visa for British citizens(who acquired via naturalization) spouse visa to UK esp for Non-EEA nationals(eg Indian spouse etc). I could see that they have to pay fee of £600 to apply for 2.5 year visa and British citizen should have minimum earnings to apply for spouse visa.
However for EEA national( eg Germany, France) spouse(non- EEA national eg Indian) visa to UK - there is minimal fee of £55 for UK residence permit( to work otherwise thats also free) and there is no need of any minmal earnings required for EEA national in UK. And spouse can get 5 year visa directly to UK.
Somehow this appears weird to me as British citizen to bring his spouse to his own country UK he he has to prove earnings and pay huge fee of £600 for just 2.5 years whereas an EEA national can bring his spouse for free to UK and that too with 5 year visa.
Can someone tell why this bias for British citizens?

Cheers
haris

It's been discussed and frankly your guess is as good as anybody's. The Home Office will only give a canned response to this, but I figure it's bit and pieces of the following reasons:

• * Money.
  * Political i.e. an attempt to discourage immigration.
  * Silliness. Sometimes countries just have silly rules for no particular reason, or for very illogical reasons. This isn't the only example in UK law of such. And the UK isn't the only country guilty of such strangeness.
  * Genuine arrogance. This is something I've run into, that there is somehow a kind of special associated with doing something in the UK, that most people do around the world all of the time without any special kind of exorbitant treatment (such as being with one's spouse). In my particular case it was the offensive, and now defunct, COA or certificate of approval (for marriage). It took civil rights court ruling for that to finally come crashing down.

If anybody can come up with any other reasons, they are just as valid as the ones I've thrown out.