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BREXIT

UK makes pension and healthcare pledge for British expats post-Brexit

The UK Prime Minister Theresa May laid out the country's post-Brexit offer to EU nationals living in the UK on Monday, but also made some key pledges that may ease the worries of the tens of thousands of British expats in Spain.

UK makes pension and healthcare pledge for British expats post-Brexit
Photo: AFP

In a speech to the British parliament on Monday, May laid out the UK’s offer to EU nationals living in the country after Brexit.

She also made key pledges on pensions and health that will be of interest to British nationals living in Spain and other EU countries.

May said the British government will continue uprating pensions, meaning they will not be frozen as they are for elderly British nationals living in countries like Canada and Australia.

The Conservative prime minister, who has been under fire ever since her party’s near-disastrous election result earlier this month, also vowed that payment of disability benefits and health cover would continue for Brits in the EU after Brexit.

“The UK will continue to export and uprate the UK state pension and provide associated healthcare cover within the EU,” May told parliament.

“We will continue to protect the export of other benefits and associated healthcare cover where the individual is in receipt of those benefits on the cut-off date,” she added.

That cut-off date has not yet been set but will be some point between the triggering of Article 50 on March 29th this year, which officially signalled the UK’s intention to leave the EU and March 29th 2019.

Theresa May also said the UK intended to continue to be a part of the European Health Insurance Card Scheme, so Brits who travel to Spain and other EU countries can continue to the health costs covered.

For longer-term residents it would mean continuing with a system whereby each country reimburses the other for the healthcare costs incurred by their citizens.

The issues of health and pensions have high on the list of Brexit worries for British nationals ever since the UK voted to leave the EU in June last year.

The bulk of May’s speech on Monday laid out the UK’s offer to EU nationals living in the UK.

All EU nationals who have five years’ continuous residence in the UK will be eligible to apply for “settled status”.

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GIBRALTAR

UK soldiers expelled from Spain after crossing from Gibraltar posing as tourists

Spain has expelled four Royal Navy servicemen who crossed the Spain-Gibraltar border on foot three times in a single day while dressed in civilian clothing, with Spanish media claiming they were checking the porosity of the border.

UK soldiers expelled from Spain after crossing from Gibraltar posing as tourists

Spanish police expelled four British soldiers from Spain on Monday night, removing them from the country and sending them back to Gibraltar after it emerged that the four Royal Navy personnel had entered Spain illegally while “posing as tourists”, as the Spanish press has reported.

The incident comes a week after the British Navy carried out military drills in the waters surrounding Gibraltar, the British overseas territory that Spain still claims sovereignty of, and amid the seemingly never-ending negotiations between Spain and the UK to finally settle a post-Brexit deal.

READ ALSO: Gibraltar Brexit deal ‘close’ as Brits crossing into Spain use fake bookings

The expulsions, now reported in the Spanish press by Europa Sur and confirmed to El Periódico de España by official sources, occurred after the four soldiers arrived in Gibraltar on a civilian flight and entered into Spain. They also had return tickets via Gibraltar.

They then reportedly passed themselves off as tourists and entered Spain on foot, staying at a four-star hotel in La Línea de la Concepción, the town in the Cádiz province of Andalusia that borders Gibraltar.

Stranger yet is that they crossed the border at La Línea on up to three occasions in the space of a few hours.

READ ALSO: What Brits need to know before crossing the border from Gibraltar to Spain

Spanish authorities detected their presence because two of the soldiers tried to return to Gibraltar at night.

At the border, Spanish police officers enquired as to the reason for their entry, to which the soldiers replied that they were on their way to work and brandished British military documentation.

The police decided that their entry into Spain had been irregular because they did not meet the Schengen Borders Code requirements demanded of non-EU citizens entering EU territory.

According to Europa Sur, Spanish police then asked the two soldiers to call their colleagues in the hotel in order to collect their luggage and return to Gibraltar, which took place at midnight on Monday 18th March.

The Spanish press has stated that it is common for soldiers to try to stay in Spanish territory by concealing their military status and entering while posing as tourists.

The motive for the soldiers’ presence, particularly their repeated trips across the border, remains unknown.

The military drills in the area seem to suggest that the soldiers may have taken part in or be due to take part in further exercises and wanted to enter as tourists.

Spanish media also suggests that they could have been testing the porosity of the border, though these claims remain unsubstantiated.

Gibraltar’s post-Brexit status still remains unresolved. The EU and UK government are now onto their 18th round of treaty negotiations after the framework agreement between London and Madrid made on New Year’s Eve 2020 essentially ‘fudged’ the border issue, leaving Gibraltar’s status within the Schengen area undefined.

Spain’s Foreign Minister José Manuel Albares said in late-2023 that “we are very, very close” to finalising a Brexit agreement.

“I would sign a deal with Britain over Gibraltar tomorrow,” Albares told journalists at the time. Yet no agreement was made, despite the Minister’s positivity, nor the appointment of former UK Prime Minister David Cameron as Foreign Secretary.

Albares’ comments came at a time when it was reported in the Spanish press that many UK nationals have been using fake hotel bookings in order to try and bypass the Schengen rules and trick their way through border checks.

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