Hi,
I am thinking about going to Spain to live and work. Yeah, I know, 26% unemployment, but there are still job openings there, I found out.
I am really SICK of my “own” country (Netherlands, who wants to live there anyway?) but after doing some research on Spain I am a little on the fence about certain stuff.
I read I need to obtain a NIE document when living and working in Spain as a foreigner.
An EU passport and a Spanish social security number are apparently not enough. No, foreigners needs to obtain and possess extra means of identification. And I am fundamentally opposed to this.
Because you were born outside Spain, you need to register yourself and you will get a registration number for that purpose.
Why should a country register foreigners in the first place, especially citizens from other EU countries?
Are the “four freedoms” as established under EU law not good enough for Spain?
Just think about how wrong this is. On multiple levels.
They make you go to a POLICE STATION to get your NIE. Need I say more?
Seriously, the police is dealing with this issue? Tells you a lot about the Spanish government’s seemingly dim view of foreigners. It’s a police matter.
Then after a while you get a plastic card that says: EXTRANJEROS.
So that you can ID yourself as a foreigner when asked by authorities or others. Ridiculous.
That card alone is a stigmatising, plastic badge of shame, even more so than the whole concept of the NIE.
It does create a division between Spanish by birth and those who are not.
And since it is technically a registration, it can serve no other purpose than to monitor and track activities that foreigners engage in. Oh, those vile, untrustworthy and shady foreigners!
Why can’t there be some decent EU harmonisation of law on this matter? The NIE needs to go.
The fact that Spain has an entire industry of “gestors” to help you deal with bureaucracy (even for Spanish people) tells you a lot about the country. The word gestor doesn’t even exist in other languages.
The NIE is an example of unnecessary bureaucracy, which in Spain has risen to an economy in itself, and serves merely as some sort of jobs plan.
