In the distance you look for what you miss at home. The best example are the British, who are drawn to Spain. After Moroccans, Romanians and Colombians, they make up the largest immigrant group, but unlike them, they don’t come looking for work, but with a hunger for the sun. British residents therefore settle less in cool Galicia or in humid Cantabria. You are looking for desert climates: Murcia, Alicante, Almería. 75,000 Britons live in the province of Alicante alone, mostly pensioners who have bought an apartment in the hinterland of the Costa Blanca.
The past few years have not been easy for her. The pandemic made travel and family visits difficult anyway. Spain imposed additional quarantine rules specifically for UK travelers. They wanted to shield themselves from new virus variants. That is not successful. Instead, the Spanish economy collapsed. The British make up the largest group of holidaymakers, well ahead of the Germans. Spaniards shaken, Brits put off – relations are difficult. And this despite the fact that the British love of Spain has grown over the decades. In the 1950s, the first British holidaymakers arrived here, mass tourism was born, people lived from and with each other from then on.
As in every relationship, there are conflicts: Hoteliers in Mallorca in particular are fed up. For years, British vacationers in Magaluf, the British Ballermann, have preferred to stay on the ground floor. This was due to serious head injuries suffered by drunken tourists who jumped into the hotel pool from the balcony. Now there is a new educational measure: in the all-inclusive hotels only six alcoholic drinks per day are free of charge, three for lunch, three for dinner, piling up is not allowed.
But it doesn’t just affect party holidaymakers. Brexit is making life difficult for residents. Talking about a “breakdown”. The Olive Press, one of the biggest media for expats, because since Sunday they are no longer allowed to drive in Spain. Unless they had their British driver’s license converted to a Spanish one by the end of last year. Anyone who hasn’t done so – and apparently there are tens of thousands of them – will now have to pay a fine if they are caught driving.
Spain is the only country in the EU to treat British driving licenses as if they didn’t exist in post-Brexit times. Brits are now stuck in picturesque villages with no way of getting to the nearest supermarket. The Olive Press quotes a man who – for whatever reason – ended up in Cantabria: Without a car he was “stuck”, nobody warned him. Just an e-mail from the British Embassy that he was no longer allowed to drive from Sunday, which came on Saturday.
The embassy is convinced that an agreement will be reached. But one remains pragmatic: it is better not to wait, but to register with a driving school as soon as possible and take the Spanish test. British tourists are exempt from the rule, they are allowed to drive. Provided they are sober.