Britons living in Portugal accuse SEF of being responsible for being deprived of access to basic rights
Britons living in Portugal complain that they have been deprived of access to basic rights such as health care, employment and social security because they have not received post-Brexit residence cards. They have already been blocked at airports while traveling to other EU countries, with some being told at the border that theirs were not in order. “We are in desperate trouble”, Tig James, co-chair of the British campaign group in Portugal, told ‘Euronews’. “This has paralyzed the lives of UK citizens emotionally, physically and financially.”
James presented cases of Britons unable to contract employment contracts, with some at v. job offers due to lack of residency documentation — “most notably, five EasyJet pilots who were referred to Portugal, with their families, exclusively for that purpose”.
“Two people were recently detained in Germany because of outdated residency documents,” he added. They had to buy alternative tickets to return to Portugal by another route outside the EU, at a cost of around 5 thousand euros.
As British citizens living in the European Union, as long as they are protected for other European Union countries, they have a residence and associated countries, as long as they were protected for the other protected rights. came into force in 2021 – the UK-EU Withdrawal Agreement protected rights such as residence, housing, employment, health and welfare, for them and their family members.
The new ones cover travel where UK citizens with rights of residence in an EU country “do not need a visa to enter their country of residence or any other EU country”. But mention of the existence of a document of the new official documentation “in the form of biometric residence”. Promised Tig James assured Portuguese authorities that the new Withdrawal Agreement Biometric Courses (WABCs) would arrive “soon” July 2019. But, three years later, they have not been launched.
In a ‘Euronews’ visa email, the Portuguese Foreigners and Borders Service (SEF) “clarifies that the current residence documents of British citizens residing in Portugal continue to be accepted”. The SEF explained that British residents can download proof of their application in the form of a document with a QR code. This, he says, “allows you to travel, serve as proof of your public residence in Portugal and guarantee access to health and social services. “EF is consistent in saying that the role it delivers is sufficient, which it certainly is not”, by James, arguing the “consequences that are certainly devastating” the “consequences that are certainly serious”. “Without a WABC treatment, you cannot apply for treatment health care (serious people if they can treat sick patients, it is not treatment, consultations if they can receive treatment for the terminally ill, it is not medical treatment), medicines dispensed , medical treatments”.
“Institutions or companies refuse to do business with UK citizens or provide a service,” James said. “Portuguese social security has accessed the payment of the family allowance until a WABC can be presented. The birth of a child cannot be registered – a family with the child finally got the child who had their child registered and, by the time all children were registered ten months, the child had children months.”
The SEF a pilot program was created to process the biometric data of Britons living in the Azores and Madeira. But this only concerns an acknowledgment of the total number of UK citizens in Portugal. The service start very much to prepare and even ensure that the training of biometric data collection will start working soon and the Brits to their new cards. But Tig James assured that he had heard that the show still needed to get started.
“SEF is deliberately and systematically doing what has resulted in the physical, emotional and financial suffering of thousands of UK citizens in Portugal.”