I am looking on with growing unease at the current EU negotiations. For British expats living in the EU, the consequences of a UK exit are horribly uncertain. My family are all Spanish residents. My kids are bilingual and in local Spanish schools. My wife is from the US and can only remain here because of my EU links. I live in a house that I have helped to build that is near worthless in the current Spanish market. But I am happy here, and I want to stay and grow old here in a place that I consider my home.
Come June, all this could change. If the UK votes to leave, nobody knows how individual member states will respond to the millions of UK expats in their midst. Spain may decide to remove residency rights, increase taxes on foreign owned assets and so on. It’s quite possible that I, along with millions of others, will be forced to return to the UK. And because I’ve been living outside the UK for more than seven years, I am not allowed to vote in a referendum that could decide my future.
All seems a bit grim, doesn’t it? Any thoughts on the likely repercussions of a Brexit with regards to British EU expats, and does anyone else out there share similar concerns?
My kids are Spanish and I’ve been here long enough (registered as a taxpayer and for social security) to qualify for Spanish citizenship myself, if necessary. This means that for me it’s more a potential pain in the arse than a real worry, mostly because I know the paperwork involved in any urgent hispanification process would be a nightmare. Just renewing my British passport last time took months and cost me a fortune, so the equivalent Spanish bureaucracy doesn’t bear thinking about.
How long have you been in Spain? With ten uninterrupted years”living here as a registered resident – i.e. a NIE holder, taxpayer, empadronado, etc.) – you can apply for Spanish citizenship (which can be dual, so your status as a British citizen won’t be affected).
Only been a registered resident for about four years (was in the US before that), so I’m some way off citizenship. Kids have dual US/UK citizenship.
Have you picked up any sense of how Spain might respond, Archie? In terms of any new rules being enforced I doubt this is something that the Guardia Civil will devote too much time to. Where it will hit people is when they leave the country and then try and get back in, when border control tell you that you’ve exceeded your 90 day maximum stay or whatever.
I’m not anticipating a massive BRITS OUT! campaign. We may be able to get some indication of what might happen from the thriving Norwegian community in eastern Spain. They’re not EU members, but they seem to be permanent residents here. In practice, as long as foreigners are seen as contributing more to the system (by working or spending their pensions) than they take out of it, they (i.e. we) shouldn’t have any problems. That’s the way it was before Maastricht/Shengen, anyway. Back in the ’90s I was living here for five years with an expired short-term work permit but the only grief I ever got for it was a traffic cop who said, “You might want to think about renewing this some time, maybe,” before returning the tattered scrap of paper in question to me and sending me on my way.
Yes, I hope you’re right. I think the pragmatic approach is the most likely outcome. But nothing seems certain anymore in this rapidly unravelling EU.
I recently got round to exchanging my UK driving license for a Spanish one, after the DGT directive last year on residents with foreign licenses. Naively, I assumed the whole process would be done and dusted relatively quickly, given that the systems are supposed to be harmonised. Mind bogglingly, it took nine months.
I can understand your anxiety and similar thoughts have been crossing my mind. Time to take the plunge and apply for Swedish citizenship? My kids are both Swedish citizens which makes me feel a little safer.
But what Archie says makes a lot of sense. The Spanish would be shooting themselves in the foot if they expelled a lot of foreigners who are contributing to the economy.
I think the answer to the question is nobody really knows what will happen. I get the feeling right now that Cameron thought he would go the country with “look what I have got” but instead the small selection of Brits Back Home I know are saying “that’s not very impressive Dave, put it away”.
I’m guessing, but only guessing, that the French will recognise that, at least down here in Languedoc, Brit Expats contribute greatly to the local community (buying crappy old houses they don’t want to live in anymore, filling the cafés and restaurants every lunchtime, buying tanker loads of wine etc) and leave well alone
But that could be completely wrong….
I live in Northern Ireland, which is the only part of the UK to share a land border with another EU member state. Very little has been said about how a Brexit would affect cross border trade, never mind the more violent aspects of the previous border experience. Also most of the pro exit pundits I’ve heard seem to assume the EU will take a relaxed attitude to a UK exit & just let us trade as before. I’m not so sure, and wouldn’t be surprised to find hefty tariffs slapped on UK product if imported into the EU. The UK would then be forced to retaliate making european goods more expensive. The fact that the rest of the commonwealth seems to have gotten along very well without us since we joined the EU seems to have bypassed a lot of the pro exit people, with Australia & New Zealand forging trading relationships much closer to home.
It seems to me the onus is on the pro exit side of the argument to prove (if that’s possible) how we would be better off out of the EU, rather than the pro EU side having to prove we’re better off where we are. There a a lot of sides to this that haven’t been mentioned, because the media seem to be concentrating on refugees and/or benefits
Hi Gary, I have worked in freight forwarding all of my working life and can tell you that inter European trade between the UK and the rest of the EU is so intrinsically linked that the possibility of new punitive tariffs being introduced if we were to exit the EU is virtually nil. Do you think for example that VW or BMW or Mercedes would want to pay hefty duty rates on all the British components that go into the manufacture of their vehicles? Or that all the mainland European manufacturers would want their product priced out of the lucrative UK market because of reciprocal duty rates imposed by a beleaguered UK government? Not a chance. There may be many reasons why the Brexit campaigners believe they have a good argument for us leaving the EU but loss of trade isn’t one of them. I am fairly ambivalent but have a wry smile when the Bulldog spirit is invoked as a reason to keep Johnny Foreigner out when there are perhaps far more Brits in France and Spain than East Europeans in the UK. Our population is a little bit thick about such things.
I live in Canada, this is obviously not part of the EU. I am not a Canadian citizen but have permanent residency. This gives me as many rights as a Canadian, except I can’t vote and am not eligible for jury service. Is there such a status in Spain (it Sweden)?
BTW I recently renewed my UK passport, it was done in the UK and took about 10 days from sending application to receiving new passport. I was pleasantly surprised.
(Or Sweden)
I got ad permanent residence in Sweden @dai. But that became fairly irrelevant with both Sweden and the UK in the EU.
I can vote in local elections but would need to become a Swedish citizen to vote in the general elections. The jury system here is different so that question isn’t relevant.
There are doubtless some jobs I wouldn’t be allowed to (army, police, some civil service, etc) but I generally don’t feel that my nationality impacts on my life in any big way.
I think that you can apply for permanent residency after five years in Spain. But I think you have to show proof of income and essentially convince the authorities that you won’t be a drain on the welfare system. But I’m not really sure about this, nor how it relates to all the shenanigans that Cameron is currently involved in, since I assume Spain’s system is complicit with EU rules.
This seemingly inexorable lurch to the right and toward isolation and suspicion has me concerned, too. Getting the European passport I’m entitled to via maternal immigration was going to be costly and incredibly time consuming. Enter the very English Mrs Mate and hey presto, there’s your European passport, squire. Possibly not any longer. Scuppering retirement plans to the country of my mother’s birth (which is lovely, sunny and boot-shaped). Why couldn’t y’all just get along?
I thought the whole idea of the EU vote was to get rid of all you Johnny foreigners once and for all. Going over to Europe with all your accumulated wealth and all that. Harumph!
Sorry, I forgot. All this kerfuffle is happening to appease the Conservative MPs who think we still live in Thatcher’s England while the vast majority of the population want to carry on regardless. Camoron just has to silence the hostile press with some favourable tax laws/knighthoods/bribes and it will all be forgotten come the Autumn.
In the meantime all over to yours for a summer Mingle in Spain and Sweden. How are you fixed?
http://www.theweek.co.uk/eu-referendum/65461/eu-referendum-polls-remain-tight-as-cameron-heads-to-brussels
39% of the British population are polling as wanting to leave the European Union. Personally, I think we should stay in, but it doesn’t appear correct to say that the vast majority of the population (43%) wants to carry on.
The really interesting thing about those polls is the suggestion that there isn’t much movement either way. I do wonder if this whole current pantomime is far less relevant than is being suggested, and that most people have already made up their mind and are unlikely to be swayed one way or t’other by Cameron’s ‘peace in our time’ deal, whatever it may be.
The irony is that a vote to leave could actually put current immigration in the shade, as millions of UK citizens, with devalued assets, return reluctantly to their homeland in search of a new home and a new life. That could stretch the public purse a little.
Writing on the sole of your slipper with a biro on a Saturday night instead of going to the pub.
Wrong thread!
You keep your Half Man Half Biscuit musings to yourself!
As an ex-expat, this petition cropped-up in my Facebook feed recently:
https://petition.parliament.uk/petitions/111271
Excluding expats from the referendum vote seems to me to be deliberately biasing the vote in favour of the Europhobes. It overlooks the point that expats are likely to be amongst those most affected by a potential exit from the EU.
Thanks Stuart. Signed.
It looks like I was mistaken about the time limit. I had heard it was seven years outside the country, but it appears to be fifteen.
Not so sure about allowing the vote. There’s about 250 000 expats here in South Africa.
Most of them are far to the right of UKIP it’s scary.
I observe the current political and economic climate in Britain with dismay, and am happy to be living in Germany. I like being part of an open, tolerant Europe, and if little Englanders want to cut off their noses to spite their faces, I’d see that as a good reason for trying to stay here longer
To be honest, I am not entirely persuaded that the rest if Europe is as open or tolerant as you suggest.
I’m not saying it (all) is, just that when it is, I like it.