Inquiries regarding the progress of a visa application do not speed up the visa proceeding. If during the proceeding questions come up or additional documents have to be submitted, the visa section will of course contact you directly without being prompted.
Due to data protection reasons the Embassy cannot give information on the progress of a visa on the telephone, as the identity of the caller cannot be confirmed by the visa section. Information of applicants, which is obtained during the visa process, as well as information regarding the progress of a single visa case is subject to data protection.
If you should consider it necessary to ask for the progress of an application for a special reason, we kindly ask you to come to the Embassy in person or submit a written inquiry with an explanation of the reasons.
The visa section is only allowed to provide information on an individual visa case to

• the applicant himself OR
• persons who can submit a written authorization of the applicant OR
• legal representatives, whose power of representation is grounded on a legal basis (e.g. parents for their children).

Accordingly the Embassy is not allowed to provide information to spouses/fiancé(e)s/employers and so on, until a written authorization is submitted. Therefore an informal but authorization by the applicant (bearing his/her handwritten signature) has to be attached to the request.