A national of India has finally managed to secure a Schengen visa issued by the Netherlands, ending a seven-year-long struggle with rejections from various Schengen Member States.
Celebrating the obtaining of the visa, the applicant, who wishes to remain anonymous, said that she and her husband had faced disappointment with four visa rejections from France, one from Spain, and another one from Finland over the year.
Even though she was faced with some rejections, the Indian applicant said that she also sought assistance from different agents. However, all her efforts were in vain as she continued to receive rejections and faced significant financial losses.
Finally, after a struggle of seven years, I got my Schengen visa from the Netherlands. Me and my husband both applied. I had four rejections from France, one from Spain, and one from Finland. I applied with the help of agents but ended up getting rejections and wasting my money.
As the applicant revealed, she submitted the application for the Netherlands visa on September 27 at the Jalandhar VFS Global. To her surprise, the file reached the embassy the next day.
However, a moment of concern arose when the husband of the applicant did not receive a message regarding his passport, as both applied simultaneously.
Despite many concerns, both applicants’ passports were dispatched, and the couple who originally applied for a 14-day visa received a 30-day single-entry visa instead.
Since the couple will be permitted to stay in the Schengen Area for more than 14 days, they said that apart from the Netherlands, they are also planning to visit France and Italy.
Schengen countries were just recently accused of ‘mercilessly’ rejecting Schengen visa applications. Sharing their experiences on social media, Schengen visa applicants said that their applications had been rejected unfairly, and they also listed numerous difficulties they encountered when applying for the document.
Recently released data for 2022 Schengen visa applications show that the Schengen Member States rejected 17.9 per cent of a total of 7,572,755 applications filed in the same year.
Such a rejection rate is quite high compared to 2021, as well as the pre-pandemic period.
Of all Schengen Member States, France and Spain rejected the highest number of applications in 2022. They were also the countries that received the highest number of applications.
France rejected a total of 408,876 Schengen visa applications, and Spain rejected a total of 227,712 Schengen visa applications.
