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.