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Brits in Spain hope for dual citizenship legislation in 2019

UK nationals in Spain are concerned about the ongoing campaign for joint citizenship, as well as how Spain will avoid hundreds of thousands of Brits from becoming illegal residents overnight in the case of a no-deal Brexit.

Published: 8 January 2019 14:56 CET
Updated: 10 January 2019 10:59 CET

Brits in Spain hope for dual citizenship legislation in 2019

Photo: ruskpp/Depositphotos

A key hurdle for Brits looking to become Spanish is the Iberian nation’s strict rules on dual citizenship. Under current Spanish law, Brits cannot officially obtain Spanish citizenship and retain their British passport.

Only countries that came under the 16th century kingdom of Philip II, and a few groups in other exceptions – including Sephardic Jews – can hold dual citizenship in Spain.

This prevents nearly 50,000 Brits who live in Spain, pay their taxes and make regular social security contributions from applying for citizenship, states a recent report by citizens' rights group EuroCitizens.

“We encourage the Spanish government to consider facilitating, by means of a special and limited piece of legislation, double citizenship for Brits who can prove they have lived and/or worked in Spain for 10 years,” states a December 2018 report by Madrid-based lobby group for UK nationals in Spain EuroCitizens.

Giles Tremlett, a Guardian journalist who launched a campaign shortly after the Brexit referendum to encourage Spain to allow Brits to hold both British and Spanish citizenship, is still pushing for that objective.

“Joint nationality would express my cultural reality,” Tremlett, who has been based in Madrid for 25 years, told The Local. The author, who says he is “bilingual and biculturual,” says he has an added incentive in fighting to obtain citizenship for his children.

Tremlett and EuroCitizens’ campaign hopes to help around 50,000 Brits who have been resident in Spain for a long time – the proposed residency duration criteria is either five or ten years – to apply for a Spanish passport.

An author of historical biographies, Tremlett says he hopes the regional governments in Valencia and Andalusia, where there are large communities of settled Brits, can be convinced to discuss the issue.

Tremlett, EuroCitizens and colleagues have already drafted the legal text. All that remains is for a party in one of those regional administrations to endorse it politically.

If that were to happen, the regional administrations could then send the law on to Madrid for review at a national level.

The number of Brits applying for Spanish citizenship has nevertheless more than tripled since 2015. 166 Britons requested Spanish citizenship in the first 10 months of 2018 alone.

Waiting times however can be long. Tremlett says he applied for his Spanish passport just six months ago. Michael Harris from EuroCitizens has been waiting for years.

More than a quarter of all the registered Brits in the EU27 live in Spain. Unlike Brits in Germany, France or Italy, who have been given some reassurances, UK nationals in Spain still await news of how their futures in the Iberian country could continue should the United Kingdom crash out of the EU without a deal that would govern their future rights.

Spanish PM Sanchez has said that it will publish contingency plans for a no-deal Brexit in February and urged British nationals not to worry about their futures.

“I want to send a message of calm to Spaniards who live in Britain and also to Britons who live in Spain: their rights will be maintained whatever the scenario,” Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez told a year-end news conference following a weekly cabinet meeting.

Official figures say there are 314,000 Brits in Spain. According to Michael Harris from Madrid-based citizens' rights organisation EuroCitizens, February is too late – such guidelines could have been published earlier, Harris told The Local.

“The British community needs to know sooner rather than later how this change will be made and what documentation Brits will have to provide to be able to continue residing legally,” states a December 2018 report by EuroCitizens and British in Europe.

Spain has said that the rights of Brits will be protected but it remains unclear what Brits will have to do to reside in the country after Brexit, which changes their automatic right to be living there.

Governments in Italy, France, Germany, Denmark and the Netherlands have all now published, or made clear, contingency motions for British nationals living in those countries.

If the UK self-implodes in the coming weeks and exits the EU with no deal that outlines the rights of its citizens living throughout the 27-country political bloc, Brits in Spain will have to hope the Spanish government will be accommodating. EU Commission no-deal contingency guidelines from November 2018 state:

“It has always been the European Union's intention that citizens should not pay the price of Brexit. This will require Member States to take a generous approach to the rights of UK citizens who are already resident in their territory.”

Harris told the Local in early January 2019 that it is vital that Brits are given time to prepare for any change of residency status, as outlined by Article 17.4 in the Withdrawal Agreement.

Many Brits are also worried what the potential forthcoming Spanish legislation could mean for their lives. “We want to see what they’ll do with us if there’s a no-deal Brexit,” EuroCitizens founder and British in Europe steering committee member Michael Harris told The Local.

The fear of becoming what some have described as “third country nationals overnight” concerns the Spanish contingent of citizen-focused groups.

Debbie Williams, a British resident of northern Valencia and founder of Brexpats Hear Our Voice, says there are key concerns for Brits in the case of a no-deal exit from the bloc.

One is that British citizens who are not employed may not be able to meet the financial criteria required as “economically inactive” people. In other words, unemployed Brits will have to demonstrate an income of €26,500 per year. This will affect pensioners and economically vulnerable groups, says Williams.

Unsurprisingly, some of the first and most active voices and groups expressing concerns about the rights of British nationals in Europe vis-a-vis Brexit emerged from Spain.

Three out of ten core founding member groups of pan-European rights group British in Europe are based in Spain: Bremain in Spain, Brexpats in Spain and EuroCitizens. Each group has its own focus.

EuroCitizens is now in touch with the office of Vice President Carmen Calvo Poyato, head of the inter-ministerial committee mandated with managing any eventualities or contingency plans in the case of a no-deal Brexit. In other words, the woman most Brits in Spain right now hope could secure their rights.

A recent EuroCitizens paper looks at the impact a soft and a hard (no-deal) Brexit could have on Brits in Spain, the third largest group of migrants in the country after Moroccans and Romanians. From coast to coast and throughout Spain’s islands, the British community in Spain is the largest of any in the EU.

Nearly half of the total number are people of working age and their families, situated in the capital Madrid or major provincial cities. The other half are pensioners living mainly in the coastal areas or islands, according to statistics from Spain’s statistics office INE.

INTERVIEW: 'A lot of people think Brexit is done, but it's not for Brits in Europe'

In the early days of 2021, after the United Kingdom had left the EU and completed the final stage of Brexit, many British citizens returned to their home countries in Europe only to face a grilling at the border.

Though the Withdrawal Agreement (WA) technically guaranteed their right to live and work in the countries they’d settled in before Brexit, there was widespread confusion about these fundamental rights and many were treated like new arrivals.

Over time, the chaos at the airports subsided as border officials and airlines were given clearer guidance on the treatment of Brits. But three years later, a number of Brits who live on the continent still face problems when it comes to proving their post-Brexit rights.

This was the reason campaign group British in Europe decided to set up their new EU-funded ICE project. Starting this year in March, it aims to build valuable connections between UK citizens abroad and mentor the next generation of civil rights advocates around the continent. The acronym stands for ‘Inform, Empower, Connect’ and the project’s organisers describe it as “the first project of its kind”.

“It’s a completely innovative project – especially the fact that it’s across so many countries,” Jane Golding, chair of British in Europe and one of the project’s founders, told The Local.

Bringing together groups from 11 EU member states, the project aims to train up volunteers to understand both the Withdrawal Agreement and EU Charter of Fundamental Rights, as well as learning skills like advocacy and communication, using real-life civil rights cases that are referred to British in Europe.

“The ultimate goal is to amplify the messages across the wider group,” said Golding. “You start with the volunteers, they go back to their groups, then the people that we train, they go back and train people. Then they pass on that knowledge to the wider groups, on their Facebook accounts and through social media, and hopefully it all snowballs, not just in their countries but across the EU.”

‘Far-reaching repercussions’

So many years after Brexit, it’s hard to believe that there’s still a need for a project like ICE that empowers Brits to protect their rights. Indeed, the future of groups like British in Europe and regional groups like British in Germany and British in Spain felt uncertain just a year or two ago.

But Golding says there are still serious issues cropping up for Brits in several countries around Europe – they just have a different quality to the problems that arose at the start.

“In some ways it’s needed even more because as we predicted right at the beginning, at the first stage of implementation, you’ve got the more routine cases,” she explained.

“What we’re seeing now is not as many cases, but when the cases come up, they’re complex. They can have such far-reaching repercussions on people’s lives. And of course, memories start to fade. A lot of people think Brexit is already done, but it’s not.”

Volunteers in British in Europe ICE project

The volunteers of the British in Europe ICE project pose for a photo at the kick-off meeting in Brussels on May 21st, 2024. Photo courtesy of Jane Golding

Though the rights set out in the Withdrawal Agreement apply across the continent, different countries have taken different approaches to implementing them.

That means that while in Germany, for example, UK citizens simply had to declare that they lived in the country, people in neighbouring Denmark had to apply for their rights.

This led to a notorious situation in Denmark in which as many as 2,000 Brits were threatened with deportation after not applying in time or completing the right application process. According to Golding, this had a lot to do with the fact that people who arrived in 2020 weren’t given the same information as other UK migrants who arrived before.

In Sweden, meanwhile, the situation is still difficult for many Brits who lived there prior to Brexit.

“There have been issues with an anomalously high numbers of refusals compared to other countries, and they seem to be taking a very strict approach on late applications,” Golding explained.

Portugal has been another difficult case. Although the country opted for a declaratory system where Brits could simply exchange old residence documents for a new ID card after Brexit, reports suggest that the authorities have taken years to issue these cards, leaving many of the some 34,000 Brits in the country in limbo.

“While people are still waiting to have their status confirmed and have their card in their hand, it’s difficult to access a whole range of services, like health services, or applying for jobs or dealing with the authorities, or even going to the bank,” Golding said. “All of these problems just affect people’s lives.”

A French border guard checks a passport at the border

A French border guard checks a passport at the border. Photo by DENIS CHARLET / AFP

There are also concerns about the EU’s new exit and entry system (EES), due to come into force in October, which is based on biometric documentation.

“We still do not have clear data on how many people in declaratory countries like Germany, where it wasn’t compulsory to apply for the card, don’t actually have a card,” Golding said. “How is that going to play out if it’s a document-based digitalised system?”

A lack of support

In the immediate aftermath of Brexit, funding from the UK’s Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office (FCDO) was still available to support NGOs in Europe helping Brits with their migration and civil rights issues. But that temporary funding soon expired, leaving groups like British in Europe largely on their own.

“The whole point is people’s lives change at very different paces,” Golding said. “And now this project is really going to start to pick up some of those cases and report on those issues, which is really crucial and exciting for the precedent that it sets, and it’s very clearly necessary still, because people don’t just sort their lives in the 18 months that the FCDO chose to supply that funding.”

This feeling of being left alone and increasingly isolated from the UK is one that many Brits in Europe have felt in the aftermath of Brexit. But the upcoming UK election on July 4th could be a game-changer.

This time, following a change in the law, Brits who have lived abroad for more than 15 years will be able to vote for the first time.

Polling station in the UK

A polling station in the UK. Photo by Elliott Stallion on Unsplash

When it comes to the election, the message from British in Europe is clear: “Make your voice count now, make your vote count, make sure you use it,” Golding said.

With the June 18th registration deadline fast approaching, BiE is advising UK citizens abroad to apply for a proxy vote as soon as possible, rather than relying on a postal vote from abroad. Since the 15-year rule was abolished on January 16th, more than 100,000 British citizens have registered to vote, according to official statistics. It is unclear how many were registered before the change in the law.

With an estimated 5.5 million Brits currently living abroad – 1.3 million of whom are in the EU – this could have a significant impact on the electoral landscape, Golding says. But most significantly, the change is creating a feeling of connection and belonging that wasn’t there before.

Nurturing this sense of belonging is one of the main goals of ICE.

With these bridges being built, British in Europe hopes to create a network of support that spans across borders.

“Now we’ve met. We’re going to meet,” said Golding. “We know we’re going to meet again in Berlin in October and then we’ll meet again in the new year in 2025 as well. It means a huge amount because even British in Europe, our steering team, we’ve only met physically three times.”

This opens up the possibility of people sharing their knowledge from country to country, Golding explained.

“There is crossover and the reassurance of having that EU wide view and knowing that you’re not alone and knowing that in this country, we managed to get this solution,” she said. “And then you can go back and say to the authorities in your country, well, in that country they did that – all of that helps. It’s really good.”

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