A British teacher has told how he is “sick” with nerves about returning to his home in Spain amid a three-year battle to get post-Brexit residency after being denied it because he was missing one month’s medical insurance in the first year after the UK left the EU. Mark Saxby, 56, said he felt “trapped” in a nightmarish limbo, unable to convince anyone that he had the right to live in Spain despite the EU-UK withdrawal agreement guaranteeing residency rights for those in the country before Brexit. He moved to Valencia and bought a property in early 2020 shortly before the pandemic and months before the Brexit deadline for residency on 31 December of that year. But now he fears he could be removed or prevented from entering the country. Closures of town halls and immigration offices during the pandemic meant his application was submitted only a few weeks before the deadline. He said when the Valencian authorities finally got back to him informing him that he was missing a month’s health insurance cover, it was too late for him to do anything about it.
“I just think I have done everything required. It is just so petty. I previously lived in Germany for eight years and I speak Italian, but I always liked the Spanish people. They are calm, friendly, they have a laugh and are not uptight, so when I was thinking where could I afford to live on my teacher’s income I thought Spain,” he said. Saxby, who teaches English as a foreign language, said his head was “spinning” with all the avenues he has tried for a resolution and he feels like no one is there to help the British people he believes Boris Johnson’s government abandoned in Brexit negotiations. “We were promised an oven-ready deal but it seems like it’s people like me that got roasted,” he said. He is returning to Spain in the next few days after a trip home to teach in Manchester and said he felt sick with nerves about whether he would be able to enter the country. “After three years of undocumented status and living off my savings, I left Spain to work in the UK this summer (with accommodation provided). I have spent all summer not knowing if I will get through Spanish immigration next week and, as the day approaches, I am beginning to feel physically sick. “My only home is in Spain. We were promised that our rights would be protected in an ‘oven-ready deal’, but when I have contacted the UK embassy in Madrid they always say it is nothing to do with them. “On the other side, the European Commission has just passed me around its various agencies, with tea and sympathy but no actual help. It has truly been a bureaucratic nightmare.” Saxby moved to Spain from Lancaster and registered with the town hall on arrival in 2020. When the lockdown was eased later that year, he applied for a non-lucrative economic visa, which he was led to believe was appropriate as he could not work during Covid. Initially, he faced common difficulties experienced by foreigners, including the translation of bank statements into English. But he said he was shocked to find he was rejected because he did not have the “right kind of private healthcare” in place between April and May of 2021, the first full year of the UK’s existence outside the EU. An EHIC tourist health card covered him for the first three months but it was not until May when his private insurance kicked in. Self-sufficient, he appealed to the Valencian authorities, citing a bilateral healthcare agreement between Spain and the UK, which he believed would have covered him up to June 2021. He contacted the Spanish ombudsman and the European ombudsman, who directed him back to Madrid “leading to further confusion and no resolution”, he said. Feeling as if he was knocking his head against a brick wall, he then went directly to the commission. In March 2023, his hopes were raised after a positive response from the commission’s “Solvit” unit, which was set up to help resolve disputes with public authorities in EU member states.
It said the commission had received a number of complaints about Spain’s application of the comprehensive sickness insurance (CSI) requirement, “which we consider possibly indicative of a general problem with Spain’s implementation and/or application of the CSI requirement”, it said, citing a pre-Brexit directive on CSI required as part of a 2004 citizens’ rights directive under free movement rules. But months later his hopes were dashed when the commission told him it could not look at an individual case and therefore “there is no ongoing dialogue” on his predicament. It also told him that because Solvit did not accept his case, there was no ongoing case and that the UK was no longer part of Solvit anyway. Instead, he would “need to consult [his] legal adviser”. Saxby, like other British citizens in the EU, protest that they have no representation to argue their case either nationally or at EU level and were “forgotten” by the British government in the withdrawal agreement. EU citizens in the UK can turn to the Independent Monitoring Authority or charities such as Settled or campaigners at the3million. But they are also backed at the highest level in Europe by the commission, which is threatening to take the UK government to the European court of justice over the implementation of the withdrawal agreement. “The commission considers that there were several shortcomings in the United Kingdom’s implementation of the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union, which continue to affect EU citizens under the withdrawal agreement,” it wrote. A spokesperson for the regional authorities in Valencia confirmed Saxby’s application for residency and its denial. They added “no documentation was provided to refute the denial. After this appeal, there is no record that the interested party has filed a contentious appeal. “Regarding the references made in his complaints to Solvit, no communication has been received in this unit (Aliens) regarding the files of the interested party, nor have they interpreted the reason for the complaint regarding other citizens affected by the Brexit”. The European Commission was approached for comment.