In this paper we reduce the problem of symmetries for the Ginzburg-Landau e
quation to a specific problem of non-classical symmetries for the linear fr
ee Schrodinger equation, with the help of an immersion result. This new pro
blem is related to the local U(1)-invariance of the model, and allows us to
construct projective representations for arbitrary Lie groups acting on th
e space-time manifold of the related sigma-model. To achieve this result we
propose an enlargement of the usual notion of non-classical symmetry.