The Spanish Government is liaising with education experts to finalise a standardised language test that anyone wishing to become a Spanish citizen would have to undergo. Meanwhile, the new test for those who wish to become British citizens has now come into force. I have just taken a practice test, one that a prospective British citizen can try out to see if he or she is ready to set the real test. Unfortunately, I can no longer consider myself a British citizen. I failed. 50% right that was all. Did I know the number of children and young people up to the age of 19 in the UK? Did I know the percentage of people in the UK in 2001 who said they were Muslims? Did I know how many days a year a school must be open? No I didn't. So I guessed. Wrongly probably. They don't give you the right answers and I'm not about to waste time looking up the answers on Google.
What a totally pointless exercise. If this is how the real test is, then there are going to be an awful lot of people who fail to become British citizens or succeed purely on the basis of guesswork. What the hell's the number of children and young people up to the age of 19 got to do with anything? The four options were 13, 14, 15 or 16 million. And?
Maybe the test I took wasn't representative. There are other ones you can take. I got full marks in the one in "The Guardian", so I have redeemed my citizenship status. I'm thinking that the other test was designed so that you would fail. It was probably a front for selling something. Whatever.
Spain doesn't have a citizenship test, not one with stupid multiple-choice questions. It may get its language test and that's it. But the Spanish Government might consider combining the two. And making this combination specific to different nationalities. So, any Briton who fancies going well and truly native would have to construct sentences or questions in Spanish, ones of particular relevance to the Briton in Spain. Here, therefore, are some samples that you need to be able to put into Spanish in order to test your chances of becoming a Spanish citizen.
1. I'm about to lose coverage from my Sky satellite. How will I be able to ensure that I can watch Premier League matches next season?
2. I cannot vote in a British general election as I have lived outside of Britain for 15 years. I have no particular wish to vote in a Spanish general election, not that I can, because I am not (yet) a Spanish citizen, but when I do become a Spanish citizen and would be entitled to, who on earth would I vote for as I've never heard of any of them?
3. I want to vote in a British general election and specifically to vote for UKIP. Would there be any potential disadvantages to my currently being a resident in Spain and not needing a permit for anything that might result from UKIP winning a British general election, because I can't think of any? VOTE FARAGE!
4. Why do the Spanish keep going on about getting Gibraltar back? Don't they know that it's British and will always be a part of our great country?
5. It would be so much better if Mourinho were to leave Real Madrid and to go back to Chelsea so that all those top-flight players such as Fernando Torres could once more enjoy success in Europe rather than Spanish club sides.
Once you've put all these into your best Spanish, send them to the ministry for public administration and wait approximately three years (the minimum time it would take to process applications) for your rejection letter to be sent.
Any comments to andrew@thealcudiaguide.com please.
Showing posts with label Citizenship. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Citizenship. Show all posts
Saturday, March 30, 2013
Monday, July 09, 2012
Who Wants To Be A Mallorcan Citizen?
There is a test of UK citizenship, courtesy of "The Guardian". It is in fact more a test of British history, so being a degree historian and keen to see if I could remember anything from the factoids with which I was bombarded at school or from Eric Evans' lectures on the Great Reform Act while at university, I duly took the plunge. Not bad as it turned out. 13 out of 15. I slipped up on when English laws were first imposed on the Welsh and the type of skilled workers who didn't come to England in large numbers from Europe in the Middle Ages. I feel I can be excused these errors. Like all of you, I would have thought that the English laws would have been in the wake of Owain Glyndwr, while the real boom in canal building, and therefore demand for canal builders (so I reckoned) was a product of the Industrial Revolution. Still, I feel suitably British, or UKish, as a result of my 13 correct answers.
I imagine that anyone from, for sake of argument Uzbekistan, who was to undergo such a test wouldn't have a clue as to answers to most of these questions and nor would they care. (I'm assuming that the relationship between England and Wales in Tudor times is not high up on the Uzbek school curriculum.) An altogether more relevant test would feature a multiple choice to name the judges on "X Factor" or Premier League football stadia which haven't been named after Middle Eastern airlines.
I feel sorry for all the Uzbeks lining up with their passport application forms and being subjected to such irrelevant questions as who were the people who worked the land under the feudal system. It's not as though most Brits, except by luck, would come up with the right answers. Were I to take the test to a local Bar Brit and subject the owners and punters to the test, I doubt that the results would be terribly convincing. So unconvincing would they be that passport control in Palma airport would be fully entitled to confiscate passports.
The test is like a bar quiz night and, as with bar quizzes wherever they might be, bickering as to the answers would reduce the whole exercise to an argument and probably a fist fight. It's unlikely you would get past question one - which countries make up "Great Britain"? - without there being a huge row, as in the significance of "Great" (once having ruled the waves versus simply big).
On the assumption that many a Brit attempting travel from Mallorca would be rendered stateless by the withdrawal of their passports, might they be able to apply for a Mallorcan citizenship? Well, there is clearly one problem with this, i.e. Mallorca isn't a state, but were it to be, what would comprise its citizenship test?
I had thought to set you all a test, but then all you would do would be to go onto Google and produce results that would suggest you were all called Miquel Cifre (like 90% of Mallorcans are; males that is, the females are Cati), so instead I shall merely raise some possibilities, to which you are more than welcome to add your own.
There would have to be some history in this test, there's no getting away from it, and so who better to feature than Ramon Llull. And he was? If you live in Mallorca and you don't know, then forget the citizenship. He is only the single most important person in Mallorca's history, except possibly King Jaume I. And why was Jaume important?
But such historical questions are, as in the UK, of only limited relevance. Far more relevant are those baffling ones to do with the modern day - How is it that there are so many looky-looky men? Are there such things as rules regarding how you negotiate a roundabout, and if so what are they? Are there such things as rules for pedestrians crossing a road, regardless of whether it's a pedestrian crossing or not? Are there such things as rules for unaccompanied dogs crossing roads? Is it obligatory to have to be able to shout when you speak in Mallorca?
Being able to answer any of these may entitle you to Mallorcan citizenship. However, there is a further slight problem, which is that, with the exception of the last question (the answer to which is yes), no Mallorcan would know the answer or even have thought of the question in the first place. My advice, therefore, is stick to the UK citizenship but be sure to brush up on your knowledge of the feudal system.
Any comments to andrew@thealcudiaguide.com please.
I imagine that anyone from, for sake of argument Uzbekistan, who was to undergo such a test wouldn't have a clue as to answers to most of these questions and nor would they care. (I'm assuming that the relationship between England and Wales in Tudor times is not high up on the Uzbek school curriculum.) An altogether more relevant test would feature a multiple choice to name the judges on "X Factor" or Premier League football stadia which haven't been named after Middle Eastern airlines.
I feel sorry for all the Uzbeks lining up with their passport application forms and being subjected to such irrelevant questions as who were the people who worked the land under the feudal system. It's not as though most Brits, except by luck, would come up with the right answers. Were I to take the test to a local Bar Brit and subject the owners and punters to the test, I doubt that the results would be terribly convincing. So unconvincing would they be that passport control in Palma airport would be fully entitled to confiscate passports.
The test is like a bar quiz night and, as with bar quizzes wherever they might be, bickering as to the answers would reduce the whole exercise to an argument and probably a fist fight. It's unlikely you would get past question one - which countries make up "Great Britain"? - without there being a huge row, as in the significance of "Great" (once having ruled the waves versus simply big).
On the assumption that many a Brit attempting travel from Mallorca would be rendered stateless by the withdrawal of their passports, might they be able to apply for a Mallorcan citizenship? Well, there is clearly one problem with this, i.e. Mallorca isn't a state, but were it to be, what would comprise its citizenship test?
I had thought to set you all a test, but then all you would do would be to go onto Google and produce results that would suggest you were all called Miquel Cifre (like 90% of Mallorcans are; males that is, the females are Cati), so instead I shall merely raise some possibilities, to which you are more than welcome to add your own.
There would have to be some history in this test, there's no getting away from it, and so who better to feature than Ramon Llull. And he was? If you live in Mallorca and you don't know, then forget the citizenship. He is only the single most important person in Mallorca's history, except possibly King Jaume I. And why was Jaume important?
But such historical questions are, as in the UK, of only limited relevance. Far more relevant are those baffling ones to do with the modern day - How is it that there are so many looky-looky men? Are there such things as rules regarding how you negotiate a roundabout, and if so what are they? Are there such things as rules for pedestrians crossing a road, regardless of whether it's a pedestrian crossing or not? Are there such things as rules for unaccompanied dogs crossing roads? Is it obligatory to have to be able to shout when you speak in Mallorca?
Being able to answer any of these may entitle you to Mallorcan citizenship. However, there is a further slight problem, which is that, with the exception of the last question (the answer to which is yes), no Mallorcan would know the answer or even have thought of the question in the first place. My advice, therefore, is stick to the UK citizenship but be sure to brush up on your knowledge of the feudal system.
Any comments to andrew@thealcudiaguide.com please.
Saturday, October 02, 2010
Mobile Homes: Residency and Spanish voting
Go on then, you're a British citizen, resident in Mallorca and therefore in Spain. National elections in Spain are looming. Would you vote, if you had the right? Would you know for whom to vote? Would you actually care or be interested?
The absence of voting rights for non-Spanish citizens, for our purposes those from the UK, is a matter that can stick in the craw with some. Tax me and let me vote. But you can't. Paying tax does not confer rights to participate in a political process. End of story.
Setting aside the apparent contradiction of being disenfranchised when it comes to electing parties which might, you hope, be less inclined to burden you with more tax, the issue of voting rights is a far broader subject, one that embraces nationhood, mobility, integration and whether you can actually be bothered.
An editorial in "The Bulletin" yesterday made a plea for the right to vote in national election. I pay tax, therefore I vote. Turn it around. You're Mallorcan, a Spanish citizen, resident in the UK, paying UK taxes. Can you vote in a general election? No you cannot. The right to vote at national level, as opposed to local or European elections, is an expression of nationhood, the domain of citizens of the individual country. If you are not a citizen, then you are not a national. Thus, you cannot vote. I find no contradiction in this.
Where the issue has become complicated, however, is through freedom of movement and rights to residency within the European community. The theoretical breakdown of discrimination against foreign nationals, enshrined in European law, has led to a wish to push the barriers back further - to exercise ever more practical applications, such as national voting.
European citizenship bestows rights to vote for a European parliament, not a national one, save for the parliament of your own country. For British citizens, this means Westminster; it doesn't mean Madrid. Where this does become discriminatory is a British matter, the fifteen-year rule effectively breaking European treaties that allow for voting in British general elections. This in itself isn't an argument for conferring rights to vote in Spanish elections; the national citizenship rule remains fundamental.
A quirk of the British voting system is that there are indeed those from other countries who can vote in a general election - those from Ireland and the Commonwealth. This, though, brings with it the whole baggage of integration and assimilation, one that applies just as much to expatriates in Spain.
Integration is a largely mythical state. It is a word bandied about without an appreciation as to what it might actually mean. Having a few "Spanish friends", eating tapas or knowing some of the lingo do not equate to integration. It's ludicrous to suggest otherwise. Mobility, and its convenient modern-day fellow-travellers, ease of communication and exposure to media, ironically militate against integration. Language and the nuance of language, culture, and, yes, politics remain the stuff of "back home". In the same issue of "The Bulletin" there was a yes-no interlude regarding Ed Miliband. Would there be a similar one regarding Mariano Rajoy and a pretender to his leadership? If you don't know who Rajoy is, you've probably answered the question. British politics 1, Spanish politics 0; for most expats anyway.
The editorial concluded by asking: "could it be that central government simply does not credit non-Spaniards with the intelligence to understand the issues at stake in a general election?" It isn't so much a question of intelligence as, for the most part, interest in or even inclination to understand the issues. Making non-Spaniard Brits part of the political process, i.e. granting them the right to vote, might spark an interest, but you might equally encounter a double whammy of apathy: a natural apathy to vote in whatever circumstances combined with an apathy to come to terms with political issues that aren't those of Britain. This is hypothetical, though; the situation doesn't apply.
Nevertheless, freedom of movement within the European Union does raise an issue in respect of citizenship, in a broad sense as brought about by residency, just as European laws have raised issues regarding absolute parliamentary sovereignty. It is the mobility encouraged by the single market that has inspired demands for national voting. The European Union has created the situation, only it can resolve the voting issue, which it partly addressed in the Maastricht treaty when making provision for voting in local and European elections. But the right for non-nationals to vote in a general election would be a political pill that would be hard to swallow, and it would be unlikely to happen. Or would it?
Any comments to andrew@thealcudiaguide.com please.
The absence of voting rights for non-Spanish citizens, for our purposes those from the UK, is a matter that can stick in the craw with some. Tax me and let me vote. But you can't. Paying tax does not confer rights to participate in a political process. End of story.
Setting aside the apparent contradiction of being disenfranchised when it comes to electing parties which might, you hope, be less inclined to burden you with more tax, the issue of voting rights is a far broader subject, one that embraces nationhood, mobility, integration and whether you can actually be bothered.
An editorial in "The Bulletin" yesterday made a plea for the right to vote in national election. I pay tax, therefore I vote. Turn it around. You're Mallorcan, a Spanish citizen, resident in the UK, paying UK taxes. Can you vote in a general election? No you cannot. The right to vote at national level, as opposed to local or European elections, is an expression of nationhood, the domain of citizens of the individual country. If you are not a citizen, then you are not a national. Thus, you cannot vote. I find no contradiction in this.
Where the issue has become complicated, however, is through freedom of movement and rights to residency within the European community. The theoretical breakdown of discrimination against foreign nationals, enshrined in European law, has led to a wish to push the barriers back further - to exercise ever more practical applications, such as national voting.
European citizenship bestows rights to vote for a European parliament, not a national one, save for the parliament of your own country. For British citizens, this means Westminster; it doesn't mean Madrid. Where this does become discriminatory is a British matter, the fifteen-year rule effectively breaking European treaties that allow for voting in British general elections. This in itself isn't an argument for conferring rights to vote in Spanish elections; the national citizenship rule remains fundamental.
A quirk of the British voting system is that there are indeed those from other countries who can vote in a general election - those from Ireland and the Commonwealth. This, though, brings with it the whole baggage of integration and assimilation, one that applies just as much to expatriates in Spain.
Integration is a largely mythical state. It is a word bandied about without an appreciation as to what it might actually mean. Having a few "Spanish friends", eating tapas or knowing some of the lingo do not equate to integration. It's ludicrous to suggest otherwise. Mobility, and its convenient modern-day fellow-travellers, ease of communication and exposure to media, ironically militate against integration. Language and the nuance of language, culture, and, yes, politics remain the stuff of "back home". In the same issue of "The Bulletin" there was a yes-no interlude regarding Ed Miliband. Would there be a similar one regarding Mariano Rajoy and a pretender to his leadership? If you don't know who Rajoy is, you've probably answered the question. British politics 1, Spanish politics 0; for most expats anyway.
The editorial concluded by asking: "could it be that central government simply does not credit non-Spaniards with the intelligence to understand the issues at stake in a general election?" It isn't so much a question of intelligence as, for the most part, interest in or even inclination to understand the issues. Making non-Spaniard Brits part of the political process, i.e. granting them the right to vote, might spark an interest, but you might equally encounter a double whammy of apathy: a natural apathy to vote in whatever circumstances combined with an apathy to come to terms with political issues that aren't those of Britain. This is hypothetical, though; the situation doesn't apply.
Nevertheless, freedom of movement within the European Union does raise an issue in respect of citizenship, in a broad sense as brought about by residency, just as European laws have raised issues regarding absolute parliamentary sovereignty. It is the mobility encouraged by the single market that has inspired demands for national voting. The European Union has created the situation, only it can resolve the voting issue, which it partly addressed in the Maastricht treaty when making provision for voting in local and European elections. But the right for non-nationals to vote in a general election would be a political pill that would be hard to swallow, and it would be unlikely to happen. Or would it?
Any comments to andrew@thealcudiaguide.com please.
Sunday, January 20, 2008
The Commitments
The general election announced, now the discussion, a discussion not of a party political nature but of voting rights.
The editor of “The Bulletin” has bemoaned the fact that, being British, he is denied a vote. Letters to the paper dispute his entitlement, a point of the letter-writers being that there is a way to gain the vote, which is to “commit” to Spain and become a citizen. The editor responds by declaring that he is “European” and that, given freedom of movement within the European Union, the right to vote should come as part of that movement.
This is a loaded exchange. I shall try and keep it brief.
What does it mean to “commit” to Spain? Gaining citizenship may be a legalistic way of declaring this, but commitment goes way deeper. A national of one country has a psychological and sociological bond with the country of origin, one formed by family, culture and language. A change in citizenship does not necessarily change the way one “feels” or indeed the way one “is”. The commitment line of argument is largely specious, except in the case of second or later generations.
There are nearly 20,000 people from the UK registered in the Balearics. This past week, there were some figures released for the number of Spanish citizenships granted to people of different countries of origin. I wish I had now kept the paper in which these were published, but I can recall the figure for the UK was very low. The greatest number was for people from a country not in the EU – Morocco. I know only one British “expatriate” who for sure has Spanish citizenship. Maybe there are more, but one doesn’t as a rule interrogate friends or acquaintances as to their citizenship.
Insofar as a foreign national chooses to live in another country and contributes to its economy and pays its taxes (aspects linked to national politics), one might argue that there is a case for voting rights. But nations jealously guard their enfranchisements and active engagement with the political process. Even in the land of the free – the USA – a foreign-born politician cannot stand as President. Arnold Schwarzenegger could never go for the White House. There are limits to the extent that nations allow other nationals to affect their politics. The European Union is not a harmonised political entity, even if some might wish that it were. Free movement there may be, but national elections are still a matter for individual countries. In a country where immigration is a topic that exercises voters, one can well imagine the canción y baile amongst Spanish voters if foreigners were suddenly allowed to choose between Zapatero and Rajoy.
But the franchise does allow for non-Spaniards to vote, and that is at what currently passes for the level of centrality in EU democracy – the European Parliament. Free movement within Europe, freedom to vote for the institution that does represent Europe. The editor is European, he’s said as much, thus he has a vote. He is not Spanish, therefore he does not have a vote in the Spanish elections.
Let us assume though that those of voting age among these 20,000 Balearic Brits were to be granted a vote. How many would actually vote? How many would be interested? As there is no vote, there is little interest, and little interest would be about right. Were there a vote, then maybe that interest would be greater, though that is questionable. The local English-speaking media is faced by a similar conundrum. No vote for the Brits, so not much reporting of the issues. “The Bulletin” contains more about British politics than it ever does about national Spanish politics. There is nothing essentially wrong with this. It knows its audience, and its audience is more interested in Gordon Brown and David Cameron than Zapatero and Rajoy. Even in the week of the announcement of the election, “Euro Weekly” had not a single mention of it, despite the election having been announced on 14 January, three days before its 17 January publication date.
It comes back to commitment, or rather its almost inevitable absence. British expats live in Mallorca and Spain because they like the climate and the lifestyle and can easily maintain their connection to the old country. They do not live here because they want to vote for the PP or PSOE. The media reflects this. In the same issue of Euro Weekly, someone is praising the paper for printing British television listings that were not in the printed-in-Spain version of “The Daily Mail”. For many Brits, that is what it’s all about – sun, sea and Sky.
Spain and Spanish politics? Where’s the commitment?
QUIZ
Yesterday – The Kinks. Today’s title – ok, the film was known for having a record number of f-words, but which of their songs is also closely associated with Wilson Pickett?
(PLEASE REPLY TO andrew@thealcudiaguide.com AND NOT VIA THE COMMENTS THINGY HERE.)
The editor of “The Bulletin” has bemoaned the fact that, being British, he is denied a vote. Letters to the paper dispute his entitlement, a point of the letter-writers being that there is a way to gain the vote, which is to “commit” to Spain and become a citizen. The editor responds by declaring that he is “European” and that, given freedom of movement within the European Union, the right to vote should come as part of that movement.
This is a loaded exchange. I shall try and keep it brief.
What does it mean to “commit” to Spain? Gaining citizenship may be a legalistic way of declaring this, but commitment goes way deeper. A national of one country has a psychological and sociological bond with the country of origin, one formed by family, culture and language. A change in citizenship does not necessarily change the way one “feels” or indeed the way one “is”. The commitment line of argument is largely specious, except in the case of second or later generations.
There are nearly 20,000 people from the UK registered in the Balearics. This past week, there were some figures released for the number of Spanish citizenships granted to people of different countries of origin. I wish I had now kept the paper in which these were published, but I can recall the figure for the UK was very low. The greatest number was for people from a country not in the EU – Morocco. I know only one British “expatriate” who for sure has Spanish citizenship. Maybe there are more, but one doesn’t as a rule interrogate friends or acquaintances as to their citizenship.
Insofar as a foreign national chooses to live in another country and contributes to its economy and pays its taxes (aspects linked to national politics), one might argue that there is a case for voting rights. But nations jealously guard their enfranchisements and active engagement with the political process. Even in the land of the free – the USA – a foreign-born politician cannot stand as President. Arnold Schwarzenegger could never go for the White House. There are limits to the extent that nations allow other nationals to affect their politics. The European Union is not a harmonised political entity, even if some might wish that it were. Free movement there may be, but national elections are still a matter for individual countries. In a country where immigration is a topic that exercises voters, one can well imagine the canción y baile amongst Spanish voters if foreigners were suddenly allowed to choose between Zapatero and Rajoy.
But the franchise does allow for non-Spaniards to vote, and that is at what currently passes for the level of centrality in EU democracy – the European Parliament. Free movement within Europe, freedom to vote for the institution that does represent Europe. The editor is European, he’s said as much, thus he has a vote. He is not Spanish, therefore he does not have a vote in the Spanish elections.
Let us assume though that those of voting age among these 20,000 Balearic Brits were to be granted a vote. How many would actually vote? How many would be interested? As there is no vote, there is little interest, and little interest would be about right. Were there a vote, then maybe that interest would be greater, though that is questionable. The local English-speaking media is faced by a similar conundrum. No vote for the Brits, so not much reporting of the issues. “The Bulletin” contains more about British politics than it ever does about national Spanish politics. There is nothing essentially wrong with this. It knows its audience, and its audience is more interested in Gordon Brown and David Cameron than Zapatero and Rajoy. Even in the week of the announcement of the election, “Euro Weekly” had not a single mention of it, despite the election having been announced on 14 January, three days before its 17 January publication date.
It comes back to commitment, or rather its almost inevitable absence. British expats live in Mallorca and Spain because they like the climate and the lifestyle and can easily maintain their connection to the old country. They do not live here because they want to vote for the PP or PSOE. The media reflects this. In the same issue of Euro Weekly, someone is praising the paper for printing British television listings that were not in the printed-in-Spain version of “The Daily Mail”. For many Brits, that is what it’s all about – sun, sea and Sky.
Spain and Spanish politics? Where’s the commitment?
QUIZ
Yesterday – The Kinks. Today’s title – ok, the film was known for having a record number of f-words, but which of their songs is also closely associated with Wilson Pickett?
(PLEASE REPLY TO andrew@thealcudiaguide.com AND NOT VIA THE COMMENTS THINGY HERE.)
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