European Union

At the moment, the Spanish authorities, with the help of their British counterparts, are trying to get thousands of British citizens living in Spain, to get their paperwork in order. These are people who do not have the green certificate and have never taken out residence. The Foreigners´ Department in Palma and has even recruited more staff to cope with “Brexit Brits.”

Over the coming months a new residence permit will be issued, it will be in the form of a residence card. I am quite amazed to see that hundreds of Britons, who already have the green certificate and therefore do not have to make the change, are booking appointments to try and get one of the new cards. This is unnecessary and the only thing that it is doing is giving additional work to staff at the Foreigners´ Office who are busy dealing with those Britons who do not have any residence permit at all.

Issuing 350,000 new residence permits to the British population in Spain is a nightmare task which will require hundreds more extra staff. This was one of the reasons why the green certificate is still valid; to allow the Spanish authorities to concentrate on those whose paperwork is not in order ahead of Brexit.