For 28-M, those who are registered for the 2019 elections will be able to do so
MADRID, 27 (EUROPE PRESS)
An agreement was signed by the British and Spanish governments in January 2019 to allow Spaniards living in Britain and Britons living in Spain to vote in municipal elections in their city of residence after Brexit comes into effect this month. March, specifically the 16th.
This is stated in this Monday’s edition of the State Gazette (BOE), which means that the entry will take effect on the day after the day on which the notification of compliance with the respective internal procedures is received.
Executives of both countries signed this bilateral agreement four years ago to be able to go to the municipal elections in the city of residence for reelection, once the United Kingdom of Great Britain left the European Union (EU) Great Britain and Northern Ireland. .
In particular, the main purpose of this agreement is to guarantee the active and passive voting rights of the nationals of both the Kingdom and Spain after the departure of the United Kingdom from the EU.
The Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union (EU) establishes the right to vote actively and passively in the European parliamentary elections and in the municipal elections of the state in which they reside, under the same conditions as nationals of said state.
The United Kingdom will not be the first non-EU country whose nationals can vote in municipal elections in Spain — and vice versa — since Spain already has agreements, for example, with Bolivia, Cape Verde, Chile, Colombia, and Korea. South, Ecuador, Iceland, Norway, New Zealand, Paraguay, Peru and Trinidad and Tobago.
3 years of residency
Ahead of the next municipal elections on May 28, its chapters decide that British nationals should have a legal and uninterrupted period of residence of three years. In this way, all British nationals who are registered for the 2019 municipal elections will be able to participate.
The call for the last municipal elections to be held in May 2019, both in Spain and in the United Kingdom, raised the question of reactive and passive voting in said elections after the effective departure of the United Kingdom from the EU.
In this way, by this convention, it was decided to grant the right to vote to both active and passive people, in order to avoid the reduction of the rights which British and Spanish citizens currently enjoy and preserve under the “status quo”.
This is the first bilateral treaty signed by Spain that provides the right to vote passively, while the other twelve agreements signed in this regard only contemplate the right to vote actively.
The text included a recitation of the force which guarantees the continuity of the British local elected officials until the end of their mandate, even after the departure of the United Kingdom from the European Union. There are about thirty councilors of British nationality in the Spanish municipalities.
