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As pro-EU demonstrators staged their protest this Wednesday (31 January) outside parliament in London, the most significant effect of the fourth anniversary of Brexit was taking place at the borders. There, Spanish and EU exporters and lorry drivers will have to produce the new health control certificates for plant and animal products, a measure the UK postponed until 31 January while it implemented a new customs control system.
Four years after the country's exit from the EU, rivers of ink on the subject have dried up and families are no longer arguing about the 'yes' or 'no' vote on disconnection. The latest polls do not even place Brexit among the ten issues that most concern the British. Their headaches are healthcare, inflation and the economy. Nevertheless, division remains and the growth in the number of citizens who voted in favour of leaving then and say they would do the opposite today is significant.
Alicia Villauriz-Iglesias, the Spanish Embassy's adviser for agriculture, fisheries and food, said that on 17 January a total of 900 operators took part in a virtual seminar on the new certificates that come into force this week. The sector's exports to the United Kingdom in 2023 amounted to around five billion euros. Business is growing, but exporters do not yet know what new customs costs will be introduced in April.
This newspaper asked the presidents of chambers of commerce and Spanish and British residents what, in their opinion, have been the most significant impacts since Brexit became a reality on 31 January 2020.
"Spanish investment has grown since 2018 and is the highest after the United States," said Eduardo Barrachina, president of the Spanish Chamber of Commerce in London, which represents more than 250 companies operating in the UK. The latest 'investment barometer' states that 54% of firms surveyed in 2023 believe that Brexit continues to have a negative effect on their activity. Barrachina, a Valencian born in 1949 and an expert in bilateral trade relations, said that although "the UK offers a favourable business climate" for sectors such as "digitalisation", the new environment "poses problems such as the high tax burden or the lack of staff", two recurring complaints in all the surveys carried out over the last four years.
And concerns are not only in the business world. The shortage of skilled workers, coupled with barriers to mobility, has a perfect example in healthcare. The British government has issued almost 100,000 visas to doctors, clinical specialists and nurses in less than a year to fix the system's shortcomings, and almost all of those recruited come from outside the EU.
Barrachina is convinced that "the main effect" of the process has naturally been "the exit of the United Kingdom from the European project" and this has meant "the loss of the four EU freedoms: movement of people, goods, services and capital. There is also another effect that we all expected: there is now a lot of talk about quotas and there are difficulties in contracting". However, Barrachina added: "When six million Europeans achieve permanent residency, it is cause for rejoicing. Things have been done well here. Six million Europeans want to live in this country, for the education, the salary or whatever. It has not been the 'rise and fall of the British Empire'."
This lawyer who defends the interests of British companies in Spain, whose investments support 227,000 jobs, stresses that "the results shown up to the first half of 2022 show that the United Kingdom continues to be one of the most committed investors in Spain", as in that period it amounted to "3.2 billion euros". In his opinion, this is a symptom of the strength of the link between an EU country and another outside the EU.
Ralph Smith said, "The UK's withdrawal from one of the largest free markets in the world has made trade with Spain more difficult and cumbersome than before." But he says that, after the initial uncertainty, "many companies are getting used to the new environment". Even so, he warns that "that does not mean that there are not serious problems, particularly in terms of personal mobility".
Originally from Santander, Carmen Garrido Montoya has been resident in the British capital for thirty years. She said that "neither the UK nor the EU took into account the elderly and the impact that Brexit could have on their lives", such as, for example, "the feeling of rejection they felt after having worked for many years in the country".
From the Miguel de Cervantes centre for senior citizens in London, also known as the Spanish Pensioners' Club, a hub of activity for some 400 Spanish retirees, this bank employee is still amazed "that some retirees from our country, who have lived here for many years, supported Brexit. Like some British residents in Spain". However she said that time has shown that the elderly "are the least affected by Brexit".
"After four years, Britons living in Spain may be over the shock, but the pain and sadness remain. We have lost the benefits, rights and opportunities that EU citizenship gave us and that we hoped to have for the rest of our lives," said Sue Wilson, president of Bremain in Spain, an association of Britons living in Spain which is calling for the UK to rejoin the European Union.
This is the other side to the "disconnection"; it has not just affected EU residents in the UK and exporters, but also British residents in the EU. Wilson said, "We now have to face the loss of valuable freedoms, such as freedom of movement. Our concern is also for those who live in the UK and dreamed of following in our footsteps, something only the rich can now achieve. Brexit has broken the UK."
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