alt Hacker News> for example this trip could be defined as an EU wide sports activity that takes a year. i didn't see anything in the regulations that would prohibit that.
What is prohibiting it is the fact that longer term things are decided on the national level (EU is not a nation). Some countries may (or may not) have whatever exceptions (Presidential, humanitarian), but they would only apply inside that country.
1. Short stays (<90 days). Schengen sports visa or standard visa exemption. Only for competition/training travel.
2. Long stays (>90 days):
- National sport or work/residence visas/permits specific to the country where you will base training and competitions.
- Once you hold a national residence permit, you can travel in other Schengen states, but long stays elsewhere are still restricted by Schengen rules (90/180 days).
> that kind of misses the point of a digital nomad visa.
Often what one wants or imagines is not what it is in reality. You can freely check what other nomad/IT options other EU and non-EU countries have and you will be surprised. Afaik Portugal's rules are a norm, not an exception.
> that intention ought to be documented somewhere. my question is rather: are you basing that intention on something or do you just assume that the intention is to not allow long term travel?
I base it on:
1. Understanding that EU was created from bottom-up. EU has only the powers that countries agreed and allowed to be given. EU is not "created on top and then decided to downstream some of the decision power to lower levels".
2. Following the political discussions, polls, etc. This is so far fetched, to put all the visa decisions on the EU level, that there is not even a discussion about it. There is no opposition to the idea, because the idea itself is so outside of Overton window that it is not funny. This is akin to asking for evidence of American individual states being against making all the taxes Federal.
3. For more info, research the discussion and opposition to EU level of refugee agreements (be it Libya, Syria or Ukraine). It's a mess, all the countries want to decide for themselves.
> i did some searches but i could not find anything that specific
I hate to be that guy, but please use AI instead of Google. AI is really good at searching and explaining these types of questions.
please use AI
if i ask AI i get this:
Yes, an EU embassy can issue special visas in exceptional cases, even if they do not fit the standard types of visas. These may be granted based on specific circumstances or urgent needs, but they are not commonly available.
which is what i have been saying all along, but i could not verify even that answer. the reference links didn't contain any text that would confirm this. so i didn't bring it up here.
asking further i get that a long-stay visa should be possible as long as he spend less than 90 days in each specific country, and maybe he has to travel back and forth between the chosen long-stay country and the countries he wants to walk through, but in practice, without checks, or without explicit registration every time he crosses an inner-EU border, how would anyone know? i guess 3 months could be enough for each EU country he passes through, so maybe that could work.
that too, i already concluded from the basic search i did before and from your comments. given that the AI answer here only confirms what i already understood, combined with the unreliability of AI in general, i don't find AI helpful enough to be worth it.