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BREXIT

Concerns raised over violation of rights of British residents travelling to Spain

The lobby group EuroCitizens has expressed its concern about violations of the rights of British residents traveling to Spain in the first days of the new year.

Published: 8 January 2021 14:57 CET
Concerns raised over violation of rights of British residents travelling to Spain
Photo: AFP

During the first week of the new normal of Brexit, the practical application of the UK's Withdrawal Agreement, the treaty protecting the rights of British residents in the EU and Europeans in the UK, has been chaotic in Spain as well as in other member states.

The Local reported how over the first few days of 2021, British residents in Spain were denied permission to travel or turned away on arrival because they weren’t in possession of the new TIE card.

Several countries have denied entry to British residents even though they were in possession of the necessary documentation (passport, valid residence document and negative PCR).

On Saturday January 2nd, around ten UK citizens arrived in Barcelona only to be returned to London because they did not have the new Identity Card for Foreigners (TIE), despite being in possession of both their passport and their valid community residence certificate.

This incident had a knock-on effect on other flights and several families, who were trying to return home, were blocked on the ground on the instructions of airlines.

The issue was resolved with the release of a statement by the Spanish embassy in London, issued on Sunday January 3rd, that once again confirmed the continuing validity of the “community green card”.

This statement is consistent with the repeated statements that EuroCitizens has received from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, European Union and Cooperation that there is no administrative requirement to replace the old green certificate (with the NIE) by the new TIE for British residents: the new Biometric card is more convenient, but no British resident in Spain is obliged to have it if they already have their NIE and the community residence certificate.

But on Friday EuroCitizens said in a statement that they had contacted the Spanish authorities to repeatedly express concern about the use of both documents, both in Spain and on entry and departure to and from the Schengen area.

As Nigel Aston, the President of EuroCitizens, points out “The events of the last few days have generated personal suffering and economic difficulties for British residents in Spain. We are aware that Covid-19 complicates the situation, however the virus is little more than an excuse for the clear lack of attention to the details of implementation.

“Problems have continued in several EU states and many British residents in EU 27 member states have had their passports stamped, contrary to the provisions of the Withdrawal Agreement, something that can lead to problems for them at borders later.

“Although the Spanish Administration has reconfirmed that the community residence certificates are still valid, it has announced that the receipts ('resguardos') of Britons who applied for residence last year are only valid for this week,” he explained.

“This deadline lacks common sense, taking into account the administrative postponements and delays in immigration offices due to Covid-19, and means that British residents with resguardos may encounter difficulties in returning to Spain.”

“It is clear that the Covid-19 crisis, the third wave and the new 'British' strain of COVID are complications in the current situation. However, this does not justify the denial of rights established in an international treaty and we hope that these events are not a bad omen for the future.”

Aston added: “Since the 2016 Brexit referendum, British residents have felt like bargaining chips in a political game. The apparent inability of UK and European administrations fully to protect our rights, as established in the Withdrawal Agreement, makes the vulnerability of citizens clear: the Agreement protects us only to the extent that it is implemented; if not, it is a dead letter. “

EuroCitizens is an association created by British citizens living, working and studying in Spain. Together with other associations of Britich citizens in Spain, such as BREMAIN and ECREU, it forms part of British in Europe, the largest coalition of British residents in Europe, with around 40,000 members. They support and cooperate with the 3million and Spanish in the UK.

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TOURISM

Ecotax and cruise bans: Why Spain’s mass tourism measures haven’t worked

Regions and cities around Spain have tried several ways to slow down the negative effects of mass tourism on local communities, largely without any luck and not addressing the major problem underpinning it.

Published: 3 May 2024 09:27 CEST
Ecotax and cruise bans: Why Spain's mass tourism measures haven't worked

The Spanish tourism sector continues to grow, but so does opposition to it.

Increasingly in Spain in recent years, anti-tourist sentiment (sometimes veering into anti-digital nomad sentiment) is on the rise, and much of it is born from frustrations about mass tourism and gentrification and their impact on Spaniards.

READ ALSO: Why does hatred of tourists in Spain appear to be on the rise?

In 2000, 46.4 million tourists visited Spain. In those days, travellers (often from Northern Europe) flocked to the coasts to stay in the hotel blocks right on the beach. The classic Spanish holiday, if you will.

But things are changing. By 2023, that figure had nearly doubled to 85.3 million.

Yet during those 23 years hotel accommodation grew by just 7 percent. This statistic, cited by Juan Molas, President of Spain’s Tourist Board and cited in Spanish daily El País, reveals a lot about the Spanish tourism sector and why efforts to try and combat mass tourism (or its negative effects, at least) have failed so far.

Molas’ statistic begs an obvious question: where do the rest of those tourists now stay, if not in traditional hotels?

Increasingly, in short-term accommodation such as tourist rentals and, in recent years, Airbnbs.

READ MORE: ‘Get the f*ck out of here’ – Málaga plastered with anti-tourism stickers

There have been regular protests against mass tourism around Spain in recent months, notably in places like the Canary Islands and Málaga.

Anti-tourist graffiti has appeared in places such as Barcelona, Valencia, Granada, the Canary and Balearic Islands, places that face the brunt of mass tourism in Spain. Locals complain that the proliferation of tourist rental accommodation depletes the affordable housing stock, inflates the local property market, and prices them out of their own neighbourhoods.

Often, these sorts of tourist rental accommodations are unlicensed and illegal. In Madrid, for example, there are tens of thousands of tourist apartments in Madrid available through platforms such as Airbnb and Booking, and yet recent findings show that barely five percent have a municipal tourist licence in order to operate legally. 

“Neither the central administration, nor the regions, nor the town councils have done their homework on the illegal [accommodation] offer, which is the most important scourge of tourism in Spain,” Molas says.

Though the problem seems obvious to many, including experts like Molas, some regions of Spain have focused on other ways to try and limit mass tourism… and they haven’t really worked so far.

READ ALSO:

Tourist tax

Tourist taxes made big news in recent weeks when Venice began charging tourists on day trips to visit the tourist hotspot.

In Spain, Catalonia and the Balearic Islands are the only two regions that have implemented tourist taxes so far, although not with the express aim of reducing the number of visitors.

Rather, Catalonia taxes overnight stays while the Balearic Islands taxes possible environmental damage. Visitor arrivals have continued to rise despite the taxes.

In the thirteen years since the tax was introduced in Barcelona, tourist numbers have risen from 14.5 million to 18 million. Importantly, a moratorium on hotel construction has been in place in the Catalan capital since 2017, which has led to an exponential growth in tourist rental accommodation in the city.

In the case of the Balearic Islands, the annual number of tourist arrivals has increased from 13 to 14 million in the six years in which the so-called ‘ecotax’ has been in force on the islands.

Limiting cruise ships

Coastal and island resorts in Spain have also tried to combat mass tourism by limiting the number of cruise ships allowed to dock there.

In 2022, Palma de Mallorca became the first destination in Spain and the second in Europe, after Dubrovnik in Croatia, to make an agreement with major cruise ship companies to establish a limit of three cruise ships per day, and specified that only one of them could bring more than 5,000 passengers ashore.

In places like Mallorca but also in Barcelona, enormous cruise ships previously docked and released thousands of tourists into the city at once.

But once again, like with the tourist taxes introduced, a limit on cruise ship numbers, although welcome, misses the point — cruise ship customers sleep on the ship, not in the real problem underpinning Spain’s mass tourism model: accommodation.

Tourist accommodation

Varying legislation restricting Airbnb-style rentals has already been introduced in recent years in cities such as Valencia, Palma, Seville, Tarifa, Madrid, Barcelona, and San Sebastián, with varying degrees of success. 

The number of short-term rental accommodation has exploded in Spain. They are particularly popular with remote workers and among digital nomads with the foreign spending power to price out locals. Recent data shows that in the old town of Seville, over half of residential homes are used for tourism. In the area of ​​Madrid’s Puerta del Sol, 28.3 percent are tourist apartments, while the figure stands at 18.3  percent in the centre of Valencia.  

READ MORE: How Spain’s Asturias region plans to limit short-term holiday lets

Tourist taxes and limits on cruise ship numbers are welcome. But they appear to be doing little to tackle the true underlying problem with Spain’s mass tourism model.

For now, measures are being rolled out largely on a regional level, but it may require the national government to step in and legislate, as it did when it scrapped the Golden Visa earlier this year, although again the effectiveness of this measure has also been questioned. 

READ MORE: Is Spain’s decision to axe golden visa about housing or politics?

Increasing the social housing stock more generally would also go some way to alleviate the pressure on Spaniards struggling to pay rent or even find a home.

Tourism is a double edged sword in Spain. The tourism sector has long made up a significant proportion of Spanish GDP and provided employment for locals, but the model it currently has is outdated, it inflates property markets, angers Spaniards, and creates tension between tourists and locals.

In 2023, international visitors spent €108 billion in Spain, 17 percent more than in 2019. Spanish travel industry association Exceltur forecasts that in 2024 it will surpass €200 billion for the first time.

READ ALSO: ‘The island can’t take it anymore’ – Why Tenerife is rejecting mass tourism

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