British expats in Spain could forfeit their rights to live and work there if the referendum vote favours leaving the EU, Spain’s acting prime minister has warned.
Mariano Rajoy noted that forgoing free movement rights would be “negative for everyone”.
“I have no doubt whatsoever, as I have repeatedly stated, that it would be very negative if the United Kingdom left the European Union. Negative for everybody, for the United Kingdom, for Spain, and for the European Union,” Rajoy told Spanish news agency EFE.
“But, above all, it would be very negative for British citizens: the European Union is based, ever since its foundation, on the principles of freedom of movement of people, goods, services and capitals.”
More than 400,000 British citizens live and work in Spain, while 100,000 Spanish citizens live in the UK, he said.
“Leaving the European Union would mean that British citizens would lose their right to move freely, work and do business within the largest economic area, the largest market in the world,” he said.
If the vote results in Brexit, Spain would not be obliged to continue to provide free healthcare to anyone who is not a citizen of the EU.
Separately, Brexit campaigners have talked about the possibility of introducing an immigration system based on points. Dutch prime minister Mark Rutte said it would likely be “unavoidable, inevitable” that European nations would impose a points system on Brits.
Comments
Rajoy says 'could'.
Peter Booker is, again, right. I well recall all aspects of the scenario, which he describes, as conditions which prevailed pre-E'U'.
My German missus was working and living in England for years before the EU crawled from the sewer.
Oh, and Peter Booker. I wasn't aware that I no longer need my passport at Faro airport.
No one should be applying Portuguese thinking to this subject as it has been seriously but 'secretly' warped against the British from the Portuguese arrival in the EU 30 years ago. Spain's likewise is warped by the Gibraltar question.
Pensioners are not what the EEC / EU was set up for but whilst on the subject what is the problem with 'passport control'? The British already show their passports to get into Portugal! Common sense tells us that a market will arise for pensioners health care through insurance and / or there will be reciprocal charging between countries.
And opportunities for the British to better oneself through self employment in Portugal ? A country that uniquely has only ever applied a near total prohibition on the British passport holder being 'effectively occupying' and establishing their own businesses in Portugal - particularly in tourism.
This is the saddest aspect of the debate - countries like Portugal and Spain have absolutely no intention of 'doing the right thing' viz a viz the British post June 23rd - whichever way the vote goes. Yet happily continue flooding the UK with their citizens to get the opportunities the UK offers.
I do not see Rajoy´s words as scaremongering, merely descriptive.
If Britain leaves the EU, then the conditions governing the lives of us expats will change. There will be passport controls, there will be frozen pensions, there will be healthcare costs, there will be restrictions on working outside Britain, there will be customs difficulties for imports, perhaps even increased charges for movement of money. These changes are certainly not in my interest, nor I suspect in the interest of any of the British expats in Portugal.
Problems then if Britain removes itself from the Union....
DIRECTIVE 2004/38/EC OF THE EUROPEAN PARLIAMENT AND OF THE COUNCIL
of 29 April 2004
(18) In order to be a genuine vehicle for integration into the society of the host Member State in
which the Union citizen resides, the right of permanent residence, once obtained, should not
be subject to any conditions.
Indeed, and Rajoy is another nasty piece of work, spreading fear for political ends. Freedom of movement, as we learn from the expat voting right case, and the reintroduction of border controls within Eurpope, is just an empty promise.
As it is the daily diet of manufactured hysterical fear mongering Brexit headlines is just getting boring.