European Welcome ?

I get info from Portuguese Resident, it is a News Paper on line, I must have signed up to it on one of our Jollies To Portugal at some time ,any way I had notification from them today, It seems business over there is screaming at their Government because of GBs ban on visitors to Portugal, apparently Brits account for over 57% of tourists in Portugal and add over several million stay nights in Hotels etc. and they say that July and August is going to kill many businesses as no revenue, to see them through the Winter.
Bit of pay back here some might say for them fining Wild Campers and closing the Aire at Praia de Roche which held a couple of hundred winter vanners?
 
I suppose if you ask the tourist industry, they obviously want visitors and will be happy to see them bringing the money in.
As for us, not relying on tourism living in France, and many people we have spoken to, we think cross border travel was enabled too soon.
We have had a pretty hard lockdown, as have most of mainland Europe and to see people coming over here on the first day the borders opened, ignored the French self quarantine rules, travelled around the country stopping at aires, campsites and restaurants, smacks of irresponsibility.
Especially since the first people we knew of coming here were very vocal Br*x***ers......
 
come down to the west country . we dont mind you all coming down.
bring your savings and all the females in your family over 16yrs old ,hee hee
mind if you have younger family members that might fit in a pressure cooker or fit the bbq then bring them as well.
best not waste your time going over to that eu place.
 
We are currently travelling from alicante to calais slowly via annecy and a few other places. Been out 8 days now and not had any problems staying on paid Aires and camper stops. Mind we are now on Spanish plates. Not seen any other brit vans though
 
runnach said:
Many, including myself, have absolutely no malice to the people mainland EU. It is the other tier of government that costs UK taxpayer dearly, we object to.
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And we object to the stripping of our rights to travel work and remain within the EU as we have done for the last 40 years.
But this thread shouldn’t be about ****** bickering, I respect your rights to have voted as you have done, me? I moved to France to continue to enjoy and benefit from all the EU has to offer.
 
Yes, I did mention it but I won’t add any more either, except to answer your question.
Mrs R, as a French National, wherever she lives enjoys free movement within the EU and now within the UK and before the UK leaves the EU will not require any documents to stay in the UK just as, at the moment, I don’t need documents to live in France.
The big difference is that Mrs R will still enjoy free movement within the EU after January, UK passport holder won’t.
 
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Snapster said:
That’s fine, but your question didn’t have any relevance to my concerns.
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Surely it means that mrs R has comitted to living in UK and have you done the same to living in France ? You can,t perhaps now get the best of both worlds
 
If, by having the best of both worlds, you mean continuing to enjoy the right to reside work and move around the EU as we have been able to do since 1992, then, probably....

But, yes, we have fully committed to living in France. We bought our house here in 2013 and spent a couple of years renovating it using local tradespeople, before we moved here full time

This is now running the risk of being way off topic now and unfortunately politics were brought into it, so I’ll say no more on the subject.
 
witzend said:
Sixty-one per cent of Spanish people polled said they did not want UK holidaymakers.
France, is almost as antagonistic with 55 per cent of respondents unhappy to see UK holidaymakers
The only nationalities less popular than the British are Americans and Chinese
uk.yahoo.com

‘Stay away,’ Europeans tell British tourists

Most citizens of top holiday nations do not want UK holidaymakers, a YouGov poll has found.As England prepares to relax quarantine rules for travellers returning from Spain, opinion in the UK’s favourite holiday nation appears strongly opposed to British visitors.
uk.yahoo.com uk.yahoo.com
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Having lived in Spain for a year or so this is about par for the course for the Spanish the same people don't want anyone in Spain unless they are Spanish ...they would rather like us to just send the money we spend but not bother going ......just ignore them. At present I think everyone is going to hit certain members of the populations in various parts of the UK , Europe indeed the world who will take that view but if we don't go out and spend money the economic situation will soon go from disastrous to catastrophic.
 
peecee said:
Having lived in Spain for a year or so this is about par for the course for the Spanish the same people don't want anyone in Spain unless they are Spanish ...they would rather like us to just send the money we spend but not bother going ......just ignore them. At present I think everyone is going to hit certain members of the populations in various parts of the UK , Europe indeed the world who will take that view but if we don't go out and spend money the economic situation will soon go from disastrous to catastrophic.
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We have lived in Spain for much of the last 6 years travelling around and have to say we find the majority of Spanish people very welcoming.
 
Surveys at the moment are useless..
I say that as I think people are paranoid about visitors increasing the risk of Covid.
Yes they are quite right to be paranoid about Covid but I suggest the risk from tourists is over-played. (but not zero)
As with most dangerous situations we retreat into our shells and seek to blame others.
We see this in UK with both Wales and Scotland (just observing NOT criticising) being unhappy with tourists of all types
They both seem to have lower covid percentages but this could be mainly due to less population density.
PS The Scotland ban on people travelling (back?) from Spain is entirely justified (IMO)
 
jacquigem said:
We have lived in Spain for much of the last 6 years travelling around and have to say we find the majority of Spanish people very welcoming.
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I don't disagree with you but there is a percentage of the population who don't want any incomers........but there is a percentage of the population in most countries that are the same ...I was trying in my own clumsy fashion to point out that the survey means nothing and depends where it was carried out ....if it was carried out at all. I lived in Alicante for several years and found that like most places , anywhere in the world and I have lived in a few places in my time , what is said to your face is different to that which is said behind your back 😃 C'est la Vie
 
jagmanx said:
Surveys at the moment are useless..
I say that as I think people are paranoid about visitors increasing the risk of Covid.
Yes they are quite right to be paranoid about Covid but I suggest the risk from tourists is over-played. (but not zero)
As with most dangerous situations we retreat into our shells and seek to blame others.
We see this in UK with both Wales and Scotland (just observing NOT criticising) being unhappy with tourists of all types
They both seem to have lower covid percentages but this could be mainly due to less population density.
PS The Scotland ban on people travelling (back?) from Spain is entirely justified (IMO)
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A survey tells you what people's opinion is at the time of the survey, hence they do them weekly or monthly on the country's politics.
You say they are useless and yet go on to give your opinion of what others are feeling, which reflects the opinion poll results so why "useless"?
 
peecee said:
I don't disagree with you but there is a percentage of the population who don't want any incomers........but there is a percentage of the population in most countries that are the same ...I was trying in my own clumsy fashion to point out that the survey means nothing and depends where it was carried out ....if it was carried out at all. I lived in Alicante for several years and found that like most places , anywhere in the world and I have lived in a few places in my time , what is said to your face is different to that which is said behind your back 😃 C'est la Vie
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Having worked as a market researcher for a couple of years I can assure you that any survey will have been undertaken strictly to the letter. It was a Yougov poll of 1000 people in each country. To do the poll researchers on the assignment would be given a small area to operate in and have 12 to 15 interviews to undertake. They will be told they must interview so many married and single women, with or without children, and of certain ages. Men by age and socio-economic grouping. I can assure you it can be difficult, as, you can quite easily be looking for the last interview a retired woman with school age kids, if you weren't keeping an eye on the interviews which are normally done over two days
 
I have lived here 25 years my wife is Spanish the only time we have not been welcome is when I took her back 2 years ago to where I was born in south London had a job finding any old friends and did not feel safe.
 
Quite a few ex pats living in the village here who have been welcomed over the years and followed the rules during and post lockdown, social distancing, masks where appropriate etc...Don’t get many uk tourists on a fortnights jollies but there are a handful here at the moment and when they all cram into the one “English” bar ignoring social distancing the locals just raise their eyebrows and shake their heads sadly. The locals here are more concerned about the folk coming here from Madrid to their holiday homes.

Pat
 
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