Brexit paperwork

There are lots of English language Facebook pages dedicated to living in Spain and aimed at Britons. There are Citizens Advice pages, Civil Guard authored pages, one from the British Consulate and subject specific pages like After Brexit and more. They are all alive with Brexit problems. Twitter is also aglow with similar stuff. Originally it was pros and cons but now it's practicalities. Apparently, since January 1st, British people who live in Spain, but are in the UK, have been bumping into problems getting home. Some of it seems to be the teething problems of new requirements at the border - the officials don't recognise the documentation and stuff written in Spanish makes no sense to them - but it has left people stranded.

One of the things that sometimes makes me snigger and sometimes exasperates me is the lack of understanding and failure to grasp the basics of the paperwork that most of us have here in Spain. I can't guarantee the accuracy of the rest of this post but, so far as I know, it's correct.

The Spaniards lived under two dictatorships in the 20th Century. The better known one had Franco as its Head of State. He introduced an identity card system and as a part of that Spaniards were issued with a unique identification number similar to the VIN on my car but shorter. The Spanish ID is called the DNI, Documento Nacional de Identidad and it has 8 digits and one verification letter which is generated by a mathematical formula. Spaniards older than 14 have to have an individual DNI, it's an offence not to have one. So the format is 12345678Z

Spaniards are identified by their DNI, it was originally a sort of tax identifier but now it's linked to everything from buying a mobile phone to passports. Because not everyone who wants to buy a property or a boat in Spain is Spanish there had to be something similar for foreigners. The similar document for foreigners is the NIE - the Foreigner's Identification Number, Número de identidad de extranjero. The NIE is really a tax identification number but, just like the DNI, it is now linked to so much more. The number is made up of an initial letter followed by seven digits and then a verification letter. The start letter is either an X or a Y. So the format is X1234567L or Y1234567X

Foreigners who want to live in Spain have to comply with a variety of conditions. Provided things are as they should be they are issued with an Identity Card or Residence Card and that card will carry their NIE. That's what happened to Maggie when she got a job here in the 1990s. She got the Residence Card because she had a job. The process included being fingerprinted and photographed. When we came house hunting in Spain, before we lived here, we went to a police station to get an NIE. I was issued with one but Maggie didn't need one because the number issued to her in the 1990s was still good. The NIE was just a piece of white A4 paper. 

Once we'd moved here we applied for Residence Cards. On the very day that I went to get my fingerprints done to get that card it was abolished for European Citizens.  I was literally in a queue to get the card and turned away. The reason the cards were abolished was because I was not a foreigner, I was a European citizen and we European citizens had rights in the member countries. Some European agreement, possibly Maastricht, said that the Spaniards couldn't demand that we Britons carry a Spanish ID card. The reasoning being that whatever our National Identity Document was (passport in our case) it was sufficient to move anywhere in Europe. The same would be true for French, Dutch, Belgians, Luxembourgians, Italians and so on. The new system would be  a register of European Citizens living in Spain. 

Maggie and I registered as soon as the new process came into being, probably around 2007. We were given a piece of A4 paper which had lots of green on it. This green certificate which was actually officially the Certificado de Registro de Ciudadano de la Unión or Registration Certificate for a Citizen of the Union was proof that we'd registered with the National Police as being resident in Spain. In time that certificate changed shape and size to be a sort of paper card but its purpose was very much the same. Everybody I know calls that certificate/card the Residencia.

Then came Brexit. When it was complete we would be foreigners again. Not European Citizens. Foreigners, such as Canadians, Mauritians and Chinese, living in Spain have a card which is called a Tarjeta de Identidad de Extranjero or a Foreigners Identity Card. I'm not sure whether it was by negotiation or because the Spaniards baulked at the idea of re-registering the approximately 300,000 Britons resident in Spain that it was decided that the green bits of paper and the green cards would continue to be valid for Britons to show that they had registered correctly before the end of the transition year and were legal to continue living in Spain from the start of 2021. There was also the offer to swap the green certificate for an ID card much like the ones carried by Spaniards and foreigners, a TIE card, but without most of the usual bureaucratic palaver. That system started in summer 2020 and Maggie and I went and got ours as soon as we could.

To recap then the NIE is simply an ID number and has nothing specifically to do with residence. The green residence certificate or card and the special Brexit TIE card all show that someone who was living here before 31 December 2020 has continuing resident status and is legally living here. There are also, apparently, letters of intent which show that Britons were living here with their rights as Europeans but that the authorities didn't have time to process the paperwork before Big Ben chimed the last EU hour. Provided they complete the process they too will be legal.

There is another piece of paper which we Brits usually call the padrón. Each municipality keeps a register of the people who live there. This register is used for statistical purposes, as the census for funding for municipalities and as the basis of the electoral roll. Under some circumstances the "padrón" gives you some rights but for most Britons it simply registers us to an address. Often, if you want to carry out something financial, like entering into a loan agreement, you'll need a "padrón" that's no more than 3 months old but the "padrón" has nothing to do with residency status.

Obviously there are Britons who have recently moved to Spain and all this new paperwork must have been horrible for them. I sympathize because Covid has slowed everything down and getting an appointment has been hampered by unscrupulous characters who have found a way to profit out of selling on the appointments. 

On the other hand I have been amazed by the number of people who have lived here for years and years and have also been involved in the last minute scrabble. People who have always renewed their UK driving licences by using a family member's UK address, people who have never got around to getting one of the green certificates and maybe aren't even on the padrón. Some of those people seem to be blissfully unaware of anything that is going on around them. Back at Twitter and Facebook I have seen people who have no idea which document is which and what it's good for. And can you imagine the Customs Official at Stansted presented with a letter of intent to apply for this or that in flowery Spanish when their briefing says to only allow residents to travel?

These things are sent to try us: five

I got my new Brexit inspired ID card a while ago. I'm sure you read the blog entry! A chum asked me if I'd help him get one too. Actually I can't help him much in that they won't let two people go in to the foreigner's offices together for some sort of anti Covid procedure. Filling in those forms and standing in queues is all a bit of a pain in the bum so I wasn't exactly overjoyed by the idea but I said yes anyway. That's what friends are for and other cliches. 

Then another pal told me that, yesterday in Murcia, when applying for their new card they'd bumped into an official who said that they needed not one but two appointments. One to apply for the card and one for the taking of fingerprints. I'm pretty sure that's not the procedure but, faced with someone who won't let you pass it doesn't really matter how right you are and how wrong they are. The somebody told me they stood their ground and actually got the card. Another example of the inconsistency of rules and procedures changed at the whim of an individual. 

The person who asked me to help him get the card would also have to go to the Murcia office but his Spanish isn't up to arguing his case. I just winced at the potential waste of time of it all.

Update: I went, with my pal, yesterday to get the TIE card in Murcia and I was wrong about them not letting me in. They let me into the building with him and into the waiting room so that he got to the point where I was able to direct him to the correct desk with the correct paperwork in his hand, duly completed and paid for. They didn't let me stay with him for the bit where his paperwork was processed but, at that point, it was basically all done. A few minutes later he came back to the waiting room with the application process completed. It'll be about four weeks until he's able to pick up the card with another appointment in Murcia.

Mistaken identity

I went to pick up my new Foreigner's Identity Card this morning. All pretty straightforward. I'm now an immigrant foreigner instead of being identified as a Citizen of the European Union. I've never cared for the glib way we Britons use the term expat. I think that it borders on the racist. It's a semantic dodge to try to make a clear division between immigrants and us. Now there's no doubt about it at all. I'm a foreigner living here with a card to prove it. Just like a Cambodian or Cameroonian.

As I was waiting in the queue a couple of things crossed my mind. I was quite happy to be getting the card and yet I'm dead set against ID cards. They are an obvious and essential means of control. Nobody would try to run a totalitarian Government without first having everyone registered and documented. When Dicky Attenborough and Gordon Jackson were getting on the bus in the Great Escape what were they asked for? Exactly. Documentation. Spain introduced ID cards during the Franco dictatorship and it still maintains them.

And the fingerprints too. The Spanish authorities now have my fingerprints, as well as the fingerprints of anyone who has an identity card. That's nearly everyone in Spain. In Hollywood films, the scene with the mug shot and fingerprints was when the person, guilty or innocent, was branded as criminal. I seem to remember, though I may well be wrong, that, in the UK, fingerprint records are kept only for proven criminals and, of course, immigrants.

There was a small queue outside the Police Station. There was a police officer on the gate. He came and went, he even answered questions. I set out to ask him if we're in the right queue a couple of times but we seemed to work like the same poles of magnets - as I approached he retreated. Maggie and I really knew though, from the general question and answer as people arrived, that everyone in our queue thought we were in the right queue. Once past the gate and into the courtyard of the Government Office it became clearer. There were two queues in the courtyard, one for the people who need to be spaced out in time, people with appointments, people who are renewing cards and the other, quicker queue, for people like us, who are just picking something up that has already been processed and should only take a couple of minutes.

I've often commented that information in Spain tends to be handed out sparingly and not willingly. This morning I messaged our Town Hall to ask what time the team that carries out repairs on the water distribution system considers to be "office hours" and the response was that they did not have that information available - they even used that sort of reasonably formal language - they didn't say, "Sorry, we don't know, you'll have to ask in such and such office," they said "At the current time that information is not available to us. You will need to enquire in such and such office". When we were in Alicante waiting for the card I thought how easy and how useful a couple of notices would be for we dazed and confused.

Inside the office I hand over my passport to prove that I'm me as I collect a document that proves that I'm me. As a secondary check they scan my fingerprints and check them against their records. The computer bleeps and it's access granted. The two women on the desk have a brief conversation about the card I'm collecting. It's a new style card and for one of the two women it's her first sight of one. They laugh that my white hair blends into the background on my photo. That's something else I've often noted about Spanish "officials". Nobody, in all the Government offices I've ever been in has treated me badly. Sometimes the result isn't what I would want but there's never any "I, Daniel Blake", about it.

Getting the new Brexit version TIE

Maggie and I went for our new TIE cards, Tarjeta de Identidad de Extranjero, Foreigner's Identity Card, today. The idea of this entry is to explain the bare bones of the process for someone who has to do it and who already has one of the green residence forms or cards.

Now that we are no longer European Union Citizens we Britons can get this ID card, we have been able to since Monday. We don't have to, at least for a while, but we can. The advantage is, in a country that uses and demands ID all the time, we will have a credit sized card that will save us the bother of carrying around our passport and other floppy bits of paper. I think, though I'm not sure, that it also allows us to sign in for certain online transactions.

The process was pretty straightforward. I saw, online, that there were some appointments available and didn't hesitate to book them up straight away. Getting appointments for lots of the official procedures has been difficult for months, no doubt partly due to we Britons finally sorting out our missing paperwork as the getting Brexit done dates came and went and came and went. I was happy to get an appointment at all and amazed when I managed to get appointments for both Maggie and me within half an hour of each other on the same day. If you have a go and you find there are no appointments available try again later. They seem to come and go quite often.

The paperwork we needed was pretty simple. There's a form for the process available online, we also had to pay the 12€ fee beforehand, which we did at a local bank. As well as the two forms the Foreigner's Office wanted a copy of the form that shows your official address, the padrón, a copy of the green document that all we British immigrants call the residencia (mine was one of the A4 sized sheets), a photo and, of course, sight of the British passport. Hardly anything. There was a trick to come though but I was ready for it.

We found the Foreigner's Office in Alicante easily, parking was easy too and it was on "our" side of town. A bit before the appointed time I queued up outside. It was a short queue of maybe seven or eight people, I showed my appointment card to the security guard and he let me in. It was amazing the number of people he turned away because they didn't have appointments. Once inside I went through the security scanner and then tapped my appointment code into a machine. The machine spat out a sort of delicatessen counter ticket and the number on that ticket flashed up on a TV screen in the waiting area telling me where to go. I went to my appointed desk in the appointed room and handed over my paperwork. In the official list of required paperwork there was mention of passport and residencia - there was no mention of copies but I've been to a lot of government offices in my 15 years here and I've learned to carry more paper than they ask for. So, when they wanted a copy of the passport and a copy of the residencia I pulled them out of my bag, rabbit like. The biggest problem was my fingerprints. I had to give my fingerprints for the biometric data chip and it appears I don't have one or any. As I said to the bloke I must remember to use that finger on the trigger if the time ever comes. I tried lots of time, maybe forty times before they got the prints they needed. That done, paperwork stapled together, the man gave me a paper slip which told me where to collect my new card in "about" three weeks. I was out within about 20 minutes.

Maggie had a similar experience though the security guard wasn't around for twenty minutes or so, probably breakfast time, I kid you not, so she was a bit late getting in. And Maggie's top hat didn't work so well - she pulled out the residencia but not a copy of her passport so she had to go to the nearby bar to get a copy. Even then she only took about 40 minutes to complete the process.

Now, if the document turns up, as promised in three weeks, just one more trip to Alicante and we're in business.

This part was written on 30 July. I rang, yesterday, to see if the card was ready and they said it was. I was told there was no appointment system and just to turn up at Calle Campo de Mirra, 6 between 9am and 2pm. That's what I did. There was a bit of queuing but basically it was hand over the bit of paper I'd been given at the end of the first session, show my passport, hand in the green residence form, give a couple of fingerprints and leave with my new TIE card.