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John Carrivick, vice chair EuroCitizens
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Six years ago we held our first public meeting in Madrid for UK citizens worried about their loss of rights after Brexit. In this blog post, John Carrivick analyses what we have achieved as an association and which EU citizens' rights have been retained by the Britons in Spain covered by the EU Withdrawal Agreement. If you have any queries about the issues, please write to us at eurocitizens2016@gmail.com.
Context
The 2016 referendum on membership of the European Union was followed by
a sort of phoney war in which it was not clear if buyer’s remorse might set in
or if getting the decision through Parliament might prove too complicated or
damaging to implement. Nevertheless, worried Britons in Spain soon realised
that, with some form of Brexit now inevitable, they needed to mobilise to
salvage what we could from the wreck. This led to the formation of EuroCitizens
and other, similarly concerned, British citizen groups in Spain and other EU
countries with many of them gravitating towards a coalition under the banner of
British in Europe.
In September 2019, EuroCitizens sent the British Embassy in Madrid a
summary of our principal concerns now that negotiations were beginning to
secure the Withdrawal Agreement (WA) that would enshrine our rights
post-Brexit.
This document had two purposes. In the first place, it was intended to
secure the place of EuroCitizens as an articulate and valid interlocutor with
the UK government both directly and via the Embassy. We were equally keen to
raise awareness of these same issues among the British resident community in
Spain.
Secondly, we wanted to be sure that the main issues that concerned us were
clearly identified to ensure they were taken into account in negotiations
between the UK government and the European Union. We wanted to make a strong
and comprehensive statement, particularly because at that stage, we did not
have a full picture of what other associations existed or might be asking for.
In the event, it turned out that there were several groups doing the same thing
and, by and large, we identified the same principal issues across different EU
member states. This was helped by our membership of the British in Europe (BIE)
pan EU coalition. Respective EuroCitizens’ Presidents have served on the BiE
steering committee.
The document only covered the rights of British residents in Spain and
did not deal with the other consequences of Brexit ranging from damage to the
British economy to the payment of customs duties on packages sent to and from
the UK.
How well did we do?
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