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Vol. 4 Issue 95 www.theolivepress.es April 24th - May 7th 2019
Eyes in the sky
Brits flocking to Spain
MILITARY drones will be patrolling the Strait of Gibraltar this year after Spain signed a huge €216 million deal with the US. Four MQ-9 Reaper drones are to carry out surveillance to tackle illegal immigration and drug trafficking. The unmanned aircraft will soon be arriving at their new base in Talavera la Real in Badajoz,
HUNDREDS of new British residents have registered to live in southern Spain. The number of registered UK nationals in Malaga has zoomed up despite the spectre of Brexit. A sizeable 600 more people were registered at the end of last year compared to 2017. And the numbers are expected to have risen further over the last quarter, believe experts. “I think many people are worried, so that has increased registrations,” Anne Hernandez, president of national support group Brexpats in Spain told the Olive Press. “And a lot of Brits are currently moving to Spain, because they don’t want to leave their dream move any longer. “Some of them just say they ‘want to escape the UK’.”
ready for action later this year. It comes as the Guardia Civil has struggled to tackle the surging drug trafficking epidemic which has seen outbursts of violence along the coasts over the past two years. It has been suggested this summer will see even more drug activity than last year.
Still in danger
Growth
By the end of 2018 there were 47,193 British nationals registered in Malaga province, the first growth since 2013. That year, there were 76,000 Britons in Malaga - the highest of any year while 10 years ago 63,000 Brits were accounted for in the area. The large drop of expat numbers mostly happened over the following couple of years due to the deep six-year recession, which was the worst in Spain’s history. This now looks to be in reverse, despite Brexit. “I know many British people who are continuing to move to Spain,” said British councillor in Manilva, Dean Tyler Shelton. “At the same time I think Brexit has been a factor in pushing more British people to register in Spain. Most have no intention of going back,” he added. Almeria had a total of 15,000 British expats registered by the end of 2018, making it the second-largest British population in Andalucia. Meanwhile, Alicante had 69,289 registered Brits in Spain in 2018, compared with 66,397 in 2017. There are 330,911 Brits registered as living in Spain, as of 31 December 2018. Last month, a royal decree was passed giving Brits living in Spain until December 31 2020 to apply for a Foreigner Identity Card, granting them legal status in the country after Brexit.
Border problems loom if Vox gets into a coalition government, warns Sir Joe Bossano A RIGHT wing coalition government that includes Vox could cause difficulties on the border with Spain, former Chief Minister Sir Joe Bossano has warned. The Minister of Economic Development’s stark words come after the rising political force vowed to close the border if it got elected into government in the April 28 national elections. This would be a disaster for the Gibraltar economy that relies on thousands of workers from Spain to cross the frontier every day. “If there is a right wing majority government they would not care about the 15,000 people who would lose
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their jobs here,” Bossano, who was knighted last year, told the Olive Press. “The PP has proven that before and I think there will be an advance of the right wing, because they have taken advantage of the disenchantment there is.” Vox’s aggressive stance on Gibraltar would turn the clock back 50 years to 1969 when General Franco ordered a border closure. The party, led by former military officer, Santiago Abascal, has consistently been critical of what it sees as
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STARK WARNING: From former leader Joe Bossano
Britain’s ‘colonisation’ of the Rock. “We are fed up with the pirates who harass our fishermen and use our compatriots as hostages,” Abascal said about those ruling Gibraltar. “While we recover Gibraltar we will make them pay taxes or go live with the monkeys,” said the controversial leader during his election campaigning. Vox had previously helped unfurl a huge Spanish flag on the BASED Rock, before gaining their first 12 regional seats in neighbouring
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Andalucia last December. In a wide-ranging interview, Bossano also warned that Spain, like all EU member states, could still veto legislation on the future relationship between the UK and the EU. This is despite the Government stopping Spain from having a Clause 24-style veto that would allow the Rock to remain in a Brexit transition stage. “We do not know what that future relationship will be, and even if we want to be in that future relationship at all,” Bossano said. “But what we do know is that the veto is when Spain believes it TMcan corner us.”
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