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CostaBlancaPeople 31st October - 6th November 2023
31ST OCTOBER - 6TH NOVEMBER 2023 - EDITION 1016
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Your Essential Weekly Read
Spain to lobby EU over 90-day rule for Brits
Spain scrapped its post-Brexit visa requirements for British touring performers in a win for the entertainment industry and now it appears that it wants to go all the
way and scrap the 90-day ruling for all UK citizens coming to Spain. For those who own businesses and second homes in Spain, it has made life extremely complicated, and it has
done little to encourage new property buyers or investors. This winter, some 3.5 million Britons will be coming to Spain, placing the UK, as always, as the country’s largest and most important tourist market and, according to reports, Spain is set to lobby the EU over a rule that limits British tourists to 90-day visits. Spain wants to scrap the 90-day limit for UK visitors, allowing them to stay in the country indefinitely. Non-EU visitors are only allowed to visit Schengen area countries for 90 days in every 180-day period. But Spain is set to ask EU authorities to relax this rule for British holidaymakers. The restriction works against Spain’s interests, Spanish government sources said. “Unfortunately, (the rule) is not something Spain has established by itself or can get rid of,” he said. “It is in our interest to lobby and convince the EU we can try to work an exception with them. But the solution must come from them.” Under the Schengen Area rules of stay for third-country citizens, non-EU citizens entering the territory under the visa-free regime can stay for a maximum of 90 days, for every 180 days. Those who overstay this period – intentionally or unintentionally – may face penalties, including deportation and entry bans, which the Spanish government made clear on January 7 and the new post-Brexit situation is proving a nightmare for thousands of Britons who own properties in Spain. Visa Restrictions The news comes as The European Commission has proposed sharpening its visa suspension rules to address the “abuse” of visa-free travel in Europe. The revised rules would give the EU more flexibility to temporarily suspend its visa-free travel schemes, including when it considers that
third countries’ policies could lead to increased migrant arrivals to the EU. The bloc fears that some of the sixty countries that have visa-free access to the European Union could be used as a transit hub for irregular migrants to enter the 27-country bloc. “Last year we had around 150,000 asylum applications from citizens coming from visa-free countries, and of course this is huge. And this is of course not how visa-free travelling should be used,” the EU home affairs commissioner Ylva Johansson said. The announcement came as the bloc grapples with a sharp increase in irregular arrivals, particularly in Mediterranean countries. The EU executive has unveiled an “action plan” to tackle the increasing number of irregular migrants making the journey to Europe via the Eastern Mediterranean route, including reinforced border management and strengthened cooperation with countries of transit and origin. The sharpened visa suspension rules also aim to tackle so-called “investor citizenship” schemes offered by third countries as a means of circumventing the EU’s visa policy.
“We have countries that have a visafree regime with the EU that are selling passports, citizenships, quite cheap to people that are a security risk or a potential security risk to the European Union,” Johansson said. The comments came two days after Abdelsalem L., who was residing in Belgium irregularly and who had been ordered to return to his country of origin, killed two Swedish nationals in an act of terrorism in Brussels. “We need to step up our efforts to be able to send people back to their country of origin,” Johansson said. “There will be no migration and asylum policy in the European Union without a meaningful returns culture”. “Europe will always continue to be a place of asylum for those who flee war, persecution and discrimination. But those who have no reason to be under the protection of the European Union cannot stay with us,” he added.