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I am an EU citizen. Wife is Kazhak national and we live in UK. We planned a holiday in Italy and obtained multi entry visa from Italian consulate. Covid restrictions have resulted in us having cancelled Italian trip and substituting Spanish trip.

  1. Is my wife entitled to use Italian visa to enter Spain given we will not be visiting Italy?
  2. If we visit Italy on a subsequent trip during the validity of the visa is my wife likely to encounter difficulties when applying subsequently for a further Italian visa.

I would appreciate if respondents could provide links to official guidance that supports their answers

Willeke
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1 Answers1

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In general, there is some flexibility as long as there is no reason to suspect you lied specifically to circumvent the regular procedures and never intended to travel to Italy. It's even less of an issue for a multiple-entry visa (which is by nature not tied to a specific trip). See also Can I use my Schengen visa for a completely different purpose and entry point?

For your wife as the member of the family of an EU citizen, it's even less of a problem. As long as she is traveling with you, the visa is merely a formality, where she is traveling is not relevant to the decision to grant entry or not. She can only be denied entry if she is not who she says she is (e.g. she is not your wife or you're not an EU citizen) or if she is a threat to public policy, public security or public health. In principle, you should not have had to justify the purpose of your trip or much of anything else when applying for that visa.

Relaxed
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