Born Free, But You’ll Pay To Prove It…

We’re finally back in Belgium, and going through all of the requisite administrative steps to register ourselves here.  Given that Belgium is home to the EU, it should come as no surprise that it boasts world-class bureaucracy.  Here’s an example of Belgian bureaucracy at it’s finest…

When you move into a house here (Belgium) you have to go and register with the local commune (which is like a city council).  You have to do this in person, and can only do so once you have physically moved into the house.  You have to take with you a signed copy of the lease, and a letter from your employer showing that you actually have a job.  You also have to take the passports and birth certificates of everyone who is living in the house, plus marriage certificates, records of annulments of prior marriages (why they care about this is beyond me…), etc.  Plus four photos of each person.  They stop short of a blood and urine sample, but I’m sure that it’s only a matter of time – they already insist on sending the Police round to your house to check that you’re not lying, or harboring dozens of illegal immigrants.

Anyway, we duly trudge down to the commune with everything they ask for, and are told that our children’s birth certificates are ‘unacceptable’.  Finn was born in Singapore, and Freya was born in Texas (and she still has the accent to prove it!).  We have the local (US and Singapore) birth certificates, but because these are ‘non-EU’ they are effectively inadmissible – the Belgians simply just refuse to accept them as ‘real’ documents.  We also have British passports for them both, but again this does not constitute ‘proof’ that they were actually born at all.  What the commune told us to do (in Flemish – they refuse to speak English, even though they can!) is contact the ‘authorities’ in America and Singapore, and ask them to provide a letter stating (in effect) that the birth certificate is a ‘real’ one.  Why a letter should be more acceptable than the original document is entirely beyond me, but there you go.  However, given that Finn was born almost 6 years ago, I can’t really see the Singapore government giving our request any particular urgency…

(As an aside, Freya’s birth certificate is on nice embossed, watermarked official-looking paper. Finn’s is actually laminated (the Singapore authorities presumably anticipate people splashing chicken rice on them from time to time, so they come in a nice wipeable form!).  Now Gil was born here in Belgium. and his ‘official’ birth certificate is basically laser printed on plain white paper, and looks like something you could knock up yourself in Microsoft Word.  What makes it ‘official’ is that it has a stamp stuck to it – like a regular lick-n-stick postage stamp. And they have the audacity to refute the genuineness of the US and Singapore ones!  At least they look real!)

Fortunately, there is another option.  We can go to the British Embassy here, and ask them to dummy up some ‘EU-regulation’ birth certificates for the kids.  They are happy to do this (at a price, of course), but again want the wife and I’s birth certificates, marriage certificates, etc, etc.  Again, being in possession of a British passport is not enough.  However, the next complication we hit is that the British Embassy does not accept my birth certificate.  In England you typically get issued ‘long form’ and/or ‘short form’ birth certificates. The short form has only the child’s details on it; the long form lists full names, addresses and occupations of both parents.  I only have my short form certificate.  I have only ever had this one, and my mother swears blind that she has never had the long form one. And, of course, the British Embassy insists on seeing the long form one (why?  What does it matter???  It is still me…).

So despite managing to get by in life for 38 years with only a short form certificate, I have to apply (to an official in the exact town where I was born…) for a long form one – just so I can get ‘EU’ birth certificates for my kids, just so I can register them in Belgium, just so I can live there.  Needless to say this all takes months.  I’m part of the way there in that I did get my long form Birth Certificate – and was relieved to find that my parents were who I thought they were, although it was interesting to see that they were listed at different addresses – but I’m now waiting on the kid’s EU birth certificates.  In the meantime, the kids are still not ‘officially’ registered in Belgium – so they can’t get healthcare, and can’t go to local schools.  Luckily we have them in at an ‘international’ school who are less insistent on seeing the correct paperwork, as long as you can pay the exorbitant fees – which incidentally means I am paying more in school fees than I am in rent!.  Ho hum.  No-one said it would be easy…