The end of the certificate

THE leader of the Partido Popular Mariano Rajoy looks on course for a landslide victory in this month´s general election and let us hope that he helps fulfil one of the election pledges of our very own President, Jose Ramon Bauza; to scrap our useless green residence certificates. Bauza, in his election manifesto for the non-Spanish speaking community at the local elections in May, said that he would try and lobby Madrid to help abolish the green certificates which replaced our normal residence cards about six years ago.

Bauza and Rajoy are all members of the Partido Popular and this should make matters easier. It is Spain which decided to introduce the certificates following pressure from Brussels but most of the non-Spanish Europeans living in Spain are not impressed by them and therefore if they were abolished I am sure that the move would be warmly welcomed. So far the only news I have heard on this issue is that the Spanish government intends to make the certificates smaller, so that they are more wallet and purse friendly.

So we could have some good news soon and we could soon be kissing goodbye to our beloved certificates. The only low point, though, is that the last government at the last general elections promised to abolish the certificates and little or nothing was done. If Rajoy does scrap the certificates then he will certainly win plenty of brownie points with the non-Spanish European community, who unfortunately, can´t vote!