My freind (Indian) is recently naturalised Dutch. (January 2012). He holds a dutch passport now.
His wife is Indian. She is also living with him, here in Netherlands, since last two years. They are married for bit more than two years now. She has already passed her Nt2 exams.
a)
Can she apply for Naturalisation process, the day she completes three years of her stay with him ? I mean, does she come under category of "Spouse of Dutch man Needs three years" or "a non-EU needs 5 years of continous stay" category ?
b)
She plans to get admission in university on Masters Level. Is she entitled to study-grant from DUO-IB-Groep ?
Thanks for the help.
Kind Regards,
YoursTruly
yourstruly said:
My freind (Indian) is recently naturalised Dutch. (January 2012). He holds a dutch passport now.
His wife is Indian. She is also living with him, here in Netherlands, since last two years. They are married for bit more than two years now. She has already passed her Nt2 exams.
a)
Can she apply for Naturalisation process, the day she completes three years of her stay with him ? I mean, does she come under category of "Spouse of Dutch man Needs three years" or "a non-EU needs 5 years of continous stay" category ?
She can apply for naturalization the day she completes three years of stay with him (in fact, not even the day that she has had a residence permit as his dependent for three years, but rather the day that she has been registered as living at the same address as him as his spouse for three years). In other words, for spouses of naturalized Dutch citizens, the time that their spouse was not a Dutch citizen fictitiously counts as if they were Dutch all along.
(By the way: the distinction you are making is not entirely accurate-- EU citizens also normally need five years of continuous stay if they want to become naturalized Dutch citizens ;-) The proper distinction is between people who are spouses/partners of Dutch citizens and people who are not spouses/partners of Dutch citizens)
b)
She plans to get admission in university on Masters Level. Is she entitled to study-grant from DUO-IB-Groep ?
Yes, definitely. But note that the DUO tends to be incredibly robotic in its thinking: they might try to reject her application on the formality that her residence permit is still for the purpose of 'verblijf bij kennismigrant' (as I assume it is now) and not a 'normal' family reunification residence permit. She should send all kinds of additional documentation proving her husband's nationality and her marriage to him (an uittreksel van de GBA for him should be sufficient), in order to prove that she is no longer 'merely' the dependent of a kennismigrant anymore.
