“I can’t not have a passport,” says another British expat blogger as she describes the appalling, and appallingly expensive, business of renewing that document, a ridiculous process that I too have written about. And it is now literally true that a British passport is a necessary possession; the Spanish State insists on it. Let me explain.
For as long as I have lived in Spain I have had a document issued by the Spanish State that is the equivalent of a Spaniard’s identity card. First of all it was a folded piece of card like a little booklet, and later it turned into a small plasticised card, the same size and shape as a typical ID card. It fits into a wallet and can be shown very easily when required. It is standard procedure in some shops to ask for proof of identity when paying by credit card, and an ID card is the obvious and standard one.
That was the case for me until yesterday, when I went to the police station to renew my card. When the official took my old card from me and put a piece of paper into a printer, I thought he was printing me a resguardo, an official document that acts as a card while the real thing is unavailable. But no, he gave me the paper and said ‘There you are. That’ll do you for ten years.’ When I asked about the card, he told me that they have stopped issuing them and that for all legal purposes I should use that paper together with my British passport. The paper itself states very clearly that it is not proof of identity or nationality and that it is merely a copy of an official record held by the police.
What has happened is that the residence permit turned into a simple card identifying the holder as an EU citizen, and that has now been abolished. In the EU there is no need for one member state to issue ID cards for citizens of others; you just use your own French, German, Italian etc. card as a Spanish citizen uses his. Unless you’re British of course, in which case you don’t have an ID card and all you can do is carry your very expensive British passport around with you at the risk of losing it, just in case you want to pop into a shop and pay with a credit card or store card, or collect a parcel from the post office – and that means that you have to buy one in the first place, even if you never travel to Britain, and it is all a very serious pain in the backside.
The question of my legal nationality, i.e. the country that issues my paperwork, is one of supreme indifference to me. Up to now I have kept my British nationality out of inertia, despite the embarrassment of being associated with the Tory government, the Labour government, the royal family, the tabloids, the football fans, the tourists and all the rest. Now, however, being British has become a serious inconvenience and taking Spanish nationality is looking more and more attractive. I know one British expat here who has decided not to renew her residence card just so that she can keep it for everyday use. Having an old one is no problem - I used an expired one for three years and only got round to getting a new one when I needed a mortgage to buy my flat – but carrying a passport around with me all the time is out of the question.
With Spanish nationality I could enter the UK with an ID card and wouldn’t need anything to go elsewhere in Europe. Then I really would be able to not have a passport.
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