It was with some regret that on Monday I surrendered my decades old clean UK driving licence to
comply with local laws. I had hoped to keep my UK licence to use
with an International Licence, but despite a visit to three post
offices in England, whilst stuck with a broken ankle, I could not get
to any of the ones dispensing licences. So that was item one. Item two was medical cover for the next year which
requires visits to the Accountant for a form and a second trip into
town and a long queue at each place. Worried Brits in Europe are
chasing their tails and trying not lose sleep about a situation which
is entirely out of their control.
However,
Ex-Pat life bordered on full scale panic mode this week as all our
friends have been exchanging advice over swapping UK driving licences
for Greek licences - with varying requirements according to your local town or village. Why? As
the exchange renewal would no longer be automatic after a no-deal
Brexit and none of us can face the ordeal of a Greek driving test or
want to be stopped on the road with an invalid licence from a non-EU
country, we were advised to act before March 29. We need to do our annual
pilgrimage to the IKA Health Insurance Office to renew our books this
week which would normally ensure health treatment for the next year.
Now we do not know if and how long this cover will remain and how
long we would survive here without health cover. This will certainly
cease with no co-ordinated agreements and the situation is especially worrying
as we all grow older and more vulnerable. In our case we are in the
middle of cancer treatment and not sure how easy it would be to leave
Greece so I am taking deep breaths and treading down the growing anxiety day by day. Happily, the IKA Office renewed our books, so we are OK until next February.
The
British Embassy keep emailing us complicated updates about contingency
plans. It feels like Armageddon. We have been visiting dozens of
offices about all these documents and permissions. We have been
examining our residence permits to see if they are valid. The locals
are frankly goggling at us wondering why we are renewing stuff that
has not expired since the implications of Brexit mean nothing to them
and they shrug when we say “Brexit”. Nobody I know here wanted
it and few were given the option to vote. The local photographers
are doing a roaring trade in all the passport photos needed for all
these transactions. Photocopiers are working overtime on copies of
passports and household bills to prove how long we have been here.
We are spending hundreds of euros paying out for all these
contingencies and not getting much sleep. I have managed to have medicals and eye examinations also to back up the driving licence application. It's all go!
Living
as a UK pensioner in Greece after a Brexit with no deal will be hard
for most and calamitous for many of us and I feel stressed at the waste
of it all. The health care provision is the crunch point. Without that cover which was automatic within the EU, many could not get private insurance and find themselves stranded with long term health care needs. Trying to sell up would be extremely hard and other
European buyers would certainly cash in on our self-induced fire sale
wondering why the Brits took such a crazy decision. We are hopeful that it won't come to that but we are praying for a deal to sort all this out.
Otherwise ....
Our
pensions, which have already been badly devalued by the fall in the
value of the pound would not be given annual increases according to
inflation, and we receive none of the benefits that UK pensioners
receive anyway. We worked, paid our way for as long as any
pensioners who remained in the UK. We pay our taxes in both
countries, we are honest and hard working and did not lawfully settle
in another country to live the life of Riley. Many of us had
smallish pensions and thought that we could live more simply and less
expensively as Europeans elsewhere in Europe. For the most part, our
hosts have treated us well and welcomed us as good neighbours. So,
if the worst happens, there will be an awful lot of impoverished
people landing at home to add to the woes of the National Health
System and homelessness in the UK. What a self-induced mess!
I had
an extraordinary conversation with a visiting UK Brexiteer who talked
about "regaining our sovreignty" in one breath and then talked
enthusiastically about the possible break up of the United Kingdom
and saving money. I wondered what "sovreignty" actually
meant to this person because it obviously meant something completely
different to me. I asked what in particular from European law had
impinged on their life. "Unelected
representatives"
(what about MEPs?) and some
water restrictions in Wales were
the only contributions to the debate. We were on completely opposite
sides of a divide trying to argue that Black was White and vice
versa. I had to stand back from the front line and try to pour oil on the
troubled waters. There was no way that we were ever going to agree
about anything. The pound has
not devalued at all according
to this family. What planet are they on? Our UK pension has
decreased steadily as the exchange rate plummeted over the previous
two years.
Apologies, dear reader that I am feeling so gutted by it all, and that this blog is no
longer taken up in the dear little stone house in Crete and our life here. It could well be that the retirement dream is in danger. It would be
hard to walk away from our little house and a last resort to contemplate
leaving all our wonderful friends and neighbours here in Crete. It would be devastating to have it taken away from us by
disenchanted Brits who wanted to make a protest and had been fed a whole
raft of lies by the media. We feel as if we have been shafted by a totally disillusioned electorate who put
the blame on the wrong people and ended up pushing the self-destruct
button.
Oh well, you can fool all the people half the time and half the people all the time ... but you cannot fool all the people all the time. We will see what the history books make of this debacle in the fullness of time. Here in Crete, we need some resolution to these contingencies; we assume that the UK Prime Minister is doing the best she can but no one could blame us for wishing that the whole caboodle had never happened!
Winter seems to have gone on for ever this year and we are in need of some fresh air and sunshine to blow all these cares and cobwebs away.
Kalomina!
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