Although I am an EU citizen and should, therefore, have freedom of movement within EU countries, this doesn’t mean that I can just swan up to any country and settle there. It was, surprisingly, that easy when I moved to the UK. In Denmark I need to jump through a few more hoops however.
The first on my list of things to do was applying for a registration certificate. This certificate is the piece of paper I need to be able to stay in the country for more than 3 months (or 6 months if a job seeker).
There should be three ways of applying for this certificate:
- at the state administration offices in Denmark,
- via mail or email,
- or at the Danish mission abroad.
As I was not yet in Denmark I tried option 3 first. I tried to call the embassy but no one seemed to know what I was talking about. I decided to try and visit the embassy in London myself, but there I was not even allowed in to speak to anyone. My final try involved getting Michael to call himself to a new number I was given, where he was told that I should apply when I get to Denmark. So option 3 was scrapped.
In the same way, it was not clear where to send the documents by email or post. I tried to call Danish Immigration but they kept on telling me that I should call somewhere else but didn’t know the number of where I should call. Also, no one seemed to know that Malta is in the EU, so that approach also didn’t work too well. I then hunted down another number online and finally got through to someone who spoke English and knew what I needed. Unfortunately it seems that although I can send them things by email, this won’t speed up the process at all as the application will only be processed once I appear in front of them in person. Therefore, I am not too sure why they list the last 2 as options.
On to my last option: waiting till I arrived in Denmark. I managed to find a list of state administration offices in Southern Denmark on the Danish Immigration Services website by going through the Danish language part using googletranslate.