My husband (sponsored spouse) has dual citizenship- help?

[dominokitty]

My husband isn't sure if he has dual citizenship or not - his father is French and his mother is Austrian. He was born in Austria and lived in France with a french passport until he was 6. Then he moved back to Austria and has lived there for the last 25 years.

However, it is forbidden in the EU to hold 2 european passports. Would he still be considered a dual citizen by birth? (Since his father is a french citizen) Do we need to put his French "citizenship" somewhere on our application?

He is convinced he does not have to (because he's not even supposed to hold a french passport by law.. the one he has has a picture of him when he was 3 on it and is LONG expired) but I'm pretty sure we still need to declare his french citizenship, they would see it looking at his birth certificate anyway. What do we do?

 

[Jonesy319]

My husband isn't sure if he has dual citizenship or not - his father is French and his mother is Austrian. He was born in Austria and lived in France with a french passport until he was 6. Then he moved back to Austria and has lived there for the last 25 years.

However, it is forbidden in the EU to hold 2 european passports. Would he still be considered a dual citizen by birth? (Since his father is a french citizen) Do we need to put his French "citizenship" somewhere on our application?

He is convinced he does not have to (because he's not even supposed to hold a french passport by law.. the one he has has a picture of him when he was 3 on it and is LONG expired) but I'm pretty sure we still need to declare his french citizenship, they would see it looking at his birth certificate anyway. What do we do?

Not sure where you get the idea that it's forbidden in the EU to hold two passports: many countries in the EU allow dual citizenship, France does, Austria does not. The UK does (I hold both UK and Canadian).

Which passport does he use - seeing as Austria doesn't allow dual citizenship it would seem fairly straightforward - he is either French or Austrian.

Jonesy

 

[dominokitty]

That's where it gets complicated - Austria doesn't allow dual citizenship UNLESS it is by birth, since he was born in Austria to an Austrian mother and French father, he was granted dual citizenship when he was born.

It's more about being forbidden to carry two EU passports (he has a french one from when he was very young and an austrian one that he has used his whole life), he seems to think he will get in trouble legally for even holding on to the super old french one

 

[etienbjel]

If he is so worried why doesn't he just return his French PP? It's redundant anyways as both PPs are EU.