Residency and work permit for spouse of EU citizen

Dear Attorney:

I am a citizen of the EU (Bulgaria) and my wife is a citizen of Mexico. She has a job offer to be a Visiting Professor from a major university in Madrid. Normally, Mexican citizens need to obtain a visa to enter the country for more than 90 days and to work. However, our understanding is that EU citizens and their spouses can obtain work permits upon entering the country.

The staff at the university is telling us that even though she is married to an EU citizen, she still needs to obtain a visa since we intend to reside in Spain for more than 90 days. However, this makes no sense to us. Why grant the Mexican citizen right to work by virtue of marriage to the EU citizen, but not grant them right to stay?

So our question is, what does marriage to EU citizen get you if you are a citizen of Mexico and you want to live and work in Spain? Just right to work once you enter,
or permanent stay with your spouse as well?

In addition, what documents, apart from passports and apostilled marriage certificate, should we bring with us to make sure we don't have any problems?

Please support your answer with a reference to the appropriate Spanish Law. We need to know what time frame are we dealing with here, and so far we have heard several possible answers. Therefore, we need a credible source of information here.

Thank you very much.

Hello,

The University staff informed you correctly. Even if your wife is married to a EU citizen she will still need to request her work and residence permit as family of a EU citizen.

Once your wife has been granted this permit, she will be entitled to work and to live in Spain.

With regards to the documentation required I recommend that you contact an immigration law firm based in the province where you will be settling.
To learn more about this please refer to: Real Decreto 240/2007

The arrangement time frame depends on how busy the Spanish authorities are at the time you request your permit. However it is normally around three / four months.