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| https://sede.policia.gob.es/portalCiudadano/extranjeria/EX19.pdf |
Are you the spouse or the dependant of an EU citizen as well as being protected by the Withdrawal Agreement? If so, please write and tell us about your situation (eurocitizens2016@gmail.com). Under EU law you should have the right to enjoy both statuses which give you advantages but, currently in Spain, this is not possible. We think this is unfair.
The right to residence of a number of UK residents in Spain is protected by the terms of the Brexit Withdrawal Agreement (WA) as well as through status as a dependant of a Spanish or EU national (with residence rights in Spain). However, in practice, it is impossible, for the moment, to reconcile the two.
The benefit of dependency status is that a degree of freedom of movement is preserved - you can reside in another EU country as a dependent and would not lose the right to reside in Spain after an absence of five years or more. However, in such a case, the rights are held as a dependent and not as an individual, as per the WA. Recognition of more than one status can thus be a valuable means of securing the full rights of residency to which someone may be entitled.
With the support of the European Commission, we have lobbied the Spanish authorities to recognise that a citizen could be entitled to more than one status. This would confer both individual rights, as a WA beneficiary, whilst acknowledging supplementary rights as a dependent. However, the authorities have shown intransigence, saying that only one status (and thus only one NIE - foreign citizen identity number) can be recognised. We have pointed out that in practical terms the issue could be resolved by an annotation to the Third Country residence card (TIE), maintaining just the one NIE but they are not prepared to shift their position. In turn, the Commission have made clear that they will only intervene formally on the basis of examples where citizens have been refused multi status.
We are trying to identify examples where this has happened. Please let us know if you or someone you know has encountered this difficulty and would be prepared to allow details to be passed to the Commission in order to take formal action.
