 |
| Stamp in a British passport. Source The Telegraph (a reader expressing the pleasure he felt at getting stamps on his visits to EU countries. No comment!) |
Since the end of the Brexit transition period, EuroCitizens has been monitoring the passsport stamping of British residents in Spain in the Schengen free movement area. There was a big response to our request for information about TIEs (third-country residence cards covered by the Withdrawal Agreement) and people mentioned passport stamping when travelling.The general conclusion was that there was little rhyme or reason to stamping.
The European Commssion has provided clarification on the matter (see below). Basically, the EC says that there is little point in British WA beneficiaries having their passports stamped, but that the Comission cannot actually prevent stamping. The most important thing is that it has no impact whatsoever on rights of entry/exit, stays in other EU countries of less than three months and residence rights in our Host Country. They do recommend however that Britons get the appropriate resident document; in Spain this means the TIE covered by the WA.
Here the old green EU certificates do remain valid, but both the Spanish government and the UK Embassy advise changing them to a TIE WA. Doing that will make your life easier both within Spain and when travelling. Another useful recommendation from some EuroCitizens committee members is to keep your electronic or paper boarding cards until your trip is finished - just in case there are complications.
 |
 |
