The view from my window

The view from my window
The view from my window

Thursday 20 December 2018

A little (true) Brexit trivia!

Well I haven't been posting lately because I have just been so darn busy trying to get everything caught up before I leave - both from a work point of view and from an administrative point of view. I had two smaller meetings at the beginning of December which, although easy because the economists I worked with are just so on the ball, still entailed follow-up and deadlines. Then I had my second "big" meeting (I have two a year) on 11 December which has meant working flat out preparing for that. The meetings themselves aren't so bad but there is a lot of frantic prep beforehand. This last meeting involved two huge reports (I would say 500 pages total) to be put together and translated (into French and Spanish) and published beforehand, so flat out doesn't even cover it! Don't get me wrong, I'm just the dogsbody in all this. We have economists, lawyers, statisticians, translators and so on doing all the hard work but some idiot (me) has to put them all together in a coherent form without getting the graphs upside down (for instance). There are always mistakes, usually no big deal, but you have to work with it. Also we have just started using Windows 10 and it is not without it's "particularities", to say the least. There certainly are bugs to be ironed out! One of these reports goes to the G20 meeting of trade ministers so I, personally, really would rather not get my graphs upside down! Anyway, that has kept me flat out but I actually enjoy it and get a lot of satisfaction when it all comes together. We have our moments as a team but I have to say I love the team I work with, despite the fact that occasionally the men seem to have more "hormones" than I do! Oh, and did I mention, it took me three hours to get to work that morning thanks to a four-car pile-up on the motorway! Can you see why I'm leaving!!!!

Anyway, even though all that is now over there were then all the administrative "thingies" to get out of the way for my retirement. Since I dealt with this stuff when I worked in HR I knew exactly what I had to do but you still have to actually do it! This morning I ran up to HR and handed in my permit to work in Switzerland and with lovely Brexit on the horizon I have to start thinking about what the future holds for me and my one son who lives in France! Nobody can tell us anything. We had drinks with the British Ambassador two weeks ago and they can't tell us any more. As it stands, my oldest son is married to a Swiss girl and lives in Switzerland so can easily get Swiss nationality in the future if he wants to (in addition to being anglo-american). Boy would I love to see my lovely, hypochondriac son do Swiss military service! Yodelayhedee! Anyway, he has a permit for Switzerland through his work so that isn't actually a problem.  My youngest (the plumber) lives in France and always has since birth, except that my doctor was in Switzerland so he was born in Switzerland. Hence although he was born there he was not entitled to Swiss citizenship (they don't have "droit de sol") and as he wasn't born in France he wasn't automatically French either. It's like trying to nail jelly to a wall isn't it! As soon as I came out of the maternity hospital he was back "at home" in France. I did enquire about French citizenship for them when they were little but was told that they needn't "bother" since they were both British! Sooooo, since he and his French fiancĂ©e are going to get married next year in any case, they have brought the civil ceremony (the legal one) forward to 16 March (I think that's the date) so that he will already be married to a French citizen when the Brexit freight trains steamrolls its juggernaut way through!

As for me, I will meet all the requirements for residency as they stand at the moment in that I will earn over €27,000 a year even in retirement, I own my own home and have private medical insurance. If my younger son had to meet those requirements he wouldn't make it on the income requirement, being a lowly plumber. So what are they going to do? Ship him "back" to the UK to claim unemployment and a council house in a country where he has never lived! What a fiasco this whole bloody thing is. Oh, and I forgot to mention, the three of us Brits were not entitled to vote on Brexit - you know this "little" thing that only "slightly" affects us. I get so mad that I sometimes just think go ahead and pay the stupid costs of the vote that no-one had a clue what they were voting on except "let's control immigration"! That's a fair point and I agree with it, but the consequences are going to be so far reaching if they can't come to an agreement. "Piss up" and "brewery" come to mind!  In the end, I know we will be ok but we now have to start the laborious business of applying for French citizenship (which takes about two years, but I'm already taking evening classes on how to complain constantly! Don't get me wrong, I love France and I love the French but if there were a complainypants Olympics they would win hands down!). But what about the poor Brits in countries that don't allow duel citizenship? My sister was married to a Dane and has lived in Denmark for nigh on 40 years, has four Danish kids but the Danes don't allow duel citizenship. What a bloody mess. And doesn't the hypocrisy of the likes of the former Chancellor Nigel Lawson, who was a staunch pro-Brexiteer but who is now taking up legal residence in France, stick in your gullet! In the end, I think they will cobble through some kind of bastardized agreement because neither side can afford such a balls up, despite the chest beating from Juncker! I mean, nobody wants to see 800,000 job losses in the UK car industry and its subsidiaries alone do they! And again, despite all the above-mentioned chest beating, the EU would be in some serious financial schtuck too if they tried to screw one of their major trading partners (and net financial contributor)!

Anyway, the whole point of my post (and I have quite a few lined up since I am almost retired - yaaaay tomorrow!) is this. The EU has just issued a civil aviation directive whereby only EU majority-owned airlines will be allowed to fly intra-EU! Buuuuuut Iberia (Spanish airlines) is majority owned by British Airways, which means that come 30 March 2019, with no alternative agreement, if you want to fly, say, from Madrid to Barcelona or from Malaga to Seville you will not be able to take Iberia!  Ha, bloody ha! However, if you want to fly from Madrid to Gibraltar you're quids in. No problems. Don't all jump at once!

10 comments:

  1. That truly is a big freaking mess. I hope it works out for your entire family. I sort of know the feeling (although not the same really). I was born in the US but spent 6 mos of my life there. Never had a social security number. About 3 years ago if born in the USA they decided you had to file taxes there even if a non resident. I have decided I am just not going to do that. It would take about 10,000 to get compliant at this point as would have to hire American accounts to file several years. The funny thing is Canada has had a US tax treaty since we moved to Canada which basically states that if you pay taxes in Canada they recognize that so I really shouldn't have to file in the USA. Another bloody mess. I have zero intention of stepping back into the states at this point, good luck finding me to force me to file taxes lol

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    1. I was a green card holder and even when we moved back to Europe in 1989 I still filed US taxes. I have no problem with that. But as I had no intention of ever moving back I gave up my green card in 1992. Again no problem. The other side of that is that my ex (American) husband was resident in France, left in 2015 but held on to his French permit and was HORRIFIED that the French were chasing him up for taxes. "But I don't live there". Sorry, numb nuts, it works both ways. Both my kids file US taxes just to keep the bogeyman at the door. I mean, seriously, my youngest is earning $15,000-$18,000 a year. I stopped at the Swiss bank today to sort final paperwork out for my retirement and had to sign paperwork to say that (a) I was not American and (b) did not have a green card. No problem for me. Both my kids ARE American but are entitled to have "foreign" bank accounts by virtue of the fact that they live "foreign". But I know of more than one case of retired staff members from our organization who had their Swiss bank accounts closed without their knowledge because they were American AND living in Switzerland. So there goes their health insurance premium and so on. Luckily we are used to this and would NEVER cut off their health insurance because their premium had not been paid (without their knowledge because their bank accounts had been paid). I also know colleagues like you who were born in the US, lived their for maybe 1 month and their parents moved on with their jobs and who are now being chased by the IRS. An American (female) neighbour of mine never filed taxes in the US because "I'm a stay-at-home mom" living in France and not earning a penny (which was true), but I told her you better get moving on filing because otherwise they will hammer you. And they tried to. Good Lord it's a nightmare isn't it. I guess the alternative for some might be to stay at home and in-breed (and I obviously apply that to all nationalities)!

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  2. Brexit is a joke and the way the government are dealing with it is worse. Its such a complex subject and I agree, a second referendum would mean the end of democracy. Respect for our government is non existent. And as for the 'Stupid Women' remark that Corbyn is denying he said.... what an idiot.

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    1. The madness of Brexit was "do you want to stay in or out". That was the bloody question. Not do you think all manufacturing should be moved to China or do you think all British unemployed should harvest the crops that only the Eastern Europeans will do. I tell you, I have been so impressed by the (usually Polish) workers working at hotels in London I hate to think what those hotels will do if they banish all those people. BUT I don't blame Theresa May. She voted remain and got stuck with an un-negotiable situation. No-one was going to be happy either way. But I think she is showing herself remarkably tough. Maybe we should just cut the men out of it - the posturing pratt Johnson, Corbyn or whoever. Time to let women rule the world.

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  3. Oh my reading both of your messes, you and CheapChick, is insane. It sounds like there was more ignorance that research behind many votes for Brexit.

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    1. The problem with the Brexit vote was the arrogance of Cameron "of course they will vote to stay in". And that was it. The posh twats with tons of money who wouldn't be affected as opposed to those who worked in industries (either side of the Brexit border) that would suffer catastrophic consequences. Take Calais, le Havre whatever. The Brits routinely take day trips in their cars to buy all and everything because it is cheaper in France. Stop that and all those northern French provinces are screwed!

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  4. This Brexit thing has always been a recipe for disaster. Someone really needs to take Boris Johnson and relocate him to the tower.

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    1. Darn it I just lost my reply to you (new computer, routinely going "pffftttt" at the moment). Boris Johnson is a showman and was only ever in it for Boris Johnson. But then you have your own "little difficulties" on your side of the Atlantic which sadly make bigger waves than ours! I enjoy reading your blog (I lived in Pittsburgh for a couple of years) and those of your like-minded readers. Happy new year.

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  5. Like everyone else, I can’t believe the mess that is Brexit. And the complications for you and your sons - and other Brits who live in Europe.

    Sheer madness!

    At my time of reading this post, you will have retired. Congrats! I have 8 to 10 more years. If I last.

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    1. Hi Lucinda (as in Lucinda sans?) I have looked for your blog and see that you stopped blogging. Glad to see you back.

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