Email
February 19
Dear Editor,
I would like to make you aware, if you are not already, of the completely unfair and unjustified charges that are being placed on ex-patriots who are currently residing in Spain due to the UK leaving the EU under the auspices of Brexit.
I recently had a box of personal possessions sent over via Royal Mail ‘Parcelforce’ to which I paid for delivery to my home address in Spain this cost £25.43 for the complete service which should have taken 4/5 working days to be delivered. The box was collected on January 19 and actually arrived in Madrid, Spain on February 3, where it awaited clearance through the Spanish customs system.
Eventually I received a notice through my letterbox from ‘Correos’ letting me know that my box was available for collection at the Rojales post office, at the bottom of the notice was a section which stated I would have to pay a further €33.80.
I went to the post office and the lady behind the counter confirmed this was due to Brexit. I have no issue paying the import duty of €14.77 (approximately £12.55), however, it is totally unfair to be charged by Correos a further €19.03 (approximately £16.17 on the day) for them to place a piece of paper with their own consignment number (EG158223857ES) when the ParcelForce consignment number is already shown (CK244706866GB).
This is blatantly abusing their power and charging British ex-patriots for no other reason than to make money and rip them off.
It has actually cost more money purely from Spanish export/administration charges that it has to move it from the UK to my home address in Spain.
There was no requirement for this before Brexit and there is no requirement for it now, it is nothing more than a money making scheme.
I sincerely hope that the UK Government is likewise going to put these type of charges on the non-British residents from EU countries in the UK with immediate effect. I found a newspaper article from your newspaper (February 12-18, 2021 paper number 2436) which stated that in the Murcia region alone export 483,000 tonnes of fruit and vegetables and over 140,000 tonnes of processed produce to the UK, worth a total of €537m and €115m respectively and that is just one small region of the EU.
Let’s see how they feel with that food rotting at a port for two weeks because the UK is processing it through customs and being charged on top of it.
I bet it wouldn’t take the Spanish government too long to register their anger to the UK government. In the end the UK is the fifth largest economy in the world and we import a great deal from the EU perhaps they should be made aware of that fact and of how much they could lose if they continue on the road of ‘punishing’ the UK for leaving the EU.
Kind regards,
Gary Pearson
