GIBRALTAR (Agencies) A 22 year old Gibraltarian has presented a complaint to Government arising from problems he had at Glasgow airport when he presented the ID document issued on the Rock. Having gone to Scotland to visit his family there, he was detained for over two hours at the airport after landing there. He was allowed to continue his trip only when his identity was proven with a passport. This is hardly the first time Gibraltarians have had similar problems when travelling to or from the UK. Opposition coalition parties have often complained of the problem, pointing to another such incident at Heathrow. They qualified the new case as 'intolerable', adding that the identity document (colloquially a 'carnet' or 'carney') has been validated by the EU through the UK.
Hace poco traté de visitar Gibraltar con una amiga de nacionalidad inglesa, como indicaba su documentación (NIE), y no pudimos entrar porque la policía Gibraltareña no reconocía el documento y ella no llevaba su pasaporte.
ReplyDeletePersonalmente desconozco los protocolos en una frontera tan especial como la de Gibraltar, pero no me parece muy coherente quejarse de que no admitan su documentación en otra parte cuando un documento válido para el resto de Europa como el NIE no lo admiten en su casa... incluso siendo compatriotas suyos, teóricamente.
La policía Española no puso problema alguno, imagino que sorprendida de que una ciudadana inglesa no pudiera cruzar la frontera a territorio de su país con el mismo documento con el que ha cruzado toda Europa.
Al final acabaremos ahogados en papeles con tanta burrocracia (y no es falta ortográfica), pero no me parece coherente protestar por las mismas normas que luego se aplican en casa sin dudarlo.
TRANSLATION OF ABOVE COMMENT:
ReplyDeleteAlittle while ago I tried to visit Gibraltar with a friend who is a British citizen, as it said on her NIE document, but she was refused entry because Gibraltar didn't recognize her document and she didn't have her passport on her.
Personally, I don't know the rules for a frontier as special as Gibraltar's but it doesn't seem to be to be very consistent to complain that documentation is not accepted somewhere else when a document, suach as an NIE, is valid everywhere in Europe except at home ... even when they are supposedly compatriots.
The Spanish (National) police had no problem, and were probably surprised that a British citizen had been turned away from a British territory for a document with whci she had been able to travel ll over Europe.
In the end we will drown in a sea of burrocratic (not a spelling mistake)paper, but it jus doesn't seem right to protest about ruleas that are then applied at home without second thought.
Good friend Juan Antonio: Thanks for your comment, and I recall that we spoke and commented on this subject in person as well as here. In fact, I even met your friend.
ReplyDeleteWhile I am hardly the right person to bang on about frontiers, given that I am of the opinion that they should be done away with everywhere (a Utopian notion, I know), I wonder if the current NIE document is in fact valid all over Europe.
You might mean the present Residencia document, though, which when it was a proper card, with photo, etc., may well have been valid. Now, however, it is a flimsy bit of card that may well not be.
In any case, I am sure that no frontier anywhere in the world that requires the presentation of a travel document will accept one that does not contain a photo.
Whatever, my friend - but I wholeheartedly agree about your wonderful new word burrocracia, which I have translated into burrocracy without need of explanation.