The term benefit scroungers came up at today?s excellent PUMA meeting at The Asturias. This being a reference to comments made by highly placed Spaniards about fellow citizens who exercise their right to re-locate to OUR country?s Mediterranean coast. (Europe is now a nation).

One wonders; do Floridians in America refer to neighbours who hail from say Nebraska or Wisconsin as scroungers? God forbid the Americans should be more civil than Spaniards.

I would remind certain Spanish commentators that tens of thousands of Spaniards, for business, social and educational reasons, choose to live in the United Kingdom. There they are treated equitably in all areas of life, including FREE access, without discrimination, to all the services provided by the British health service.

It is unthinkable that any Briton would refer to Spanish users as parasites. Fellow Europeans are unfailingly treated as honoured guests. The British make excellent hosts to fellow Europeans.

It would be absurd for Spaniards living in Britain to be treated as kaffirs in apartheid South Africa; as second-class citizens. The British who live in this region of their Europe, to which they have provided enormous subsidies through EU governance, are not parasites; they are assets. Remember that when you drive on roads built by the taxes of your northern European fellow citizens.

I write as an Irishman whose father fought bravely at the Battle of Jarama during the Spanish Civil War; and who buried scores of his multi-European comrades there and at other Spanish battlefields. My mother was a friend and correspondent of Dolores Ibarruri (la Pasionaria). You didn?t discriminate against fellow Europeans then.

To a man we love your country, respect your traditions, and share your pride in your nation?s great achievements. Please don?t spoil it.

Mike I totally share your sentiments as regards the kind of discrimination you are referring to.  Many of us are still made to feel like second-class citizens when interacting with certain forms of Spanish bureacracy, and the legendary resentment of some civil servants has become a total cliche.

Sadly though, one of the reasons I wanted to leave my home in the UK was because of the attitude toward certain ‘fellow Europeans’ - especially Eastern Europeans - who were regarded as far from ‘honoured guests’.  The system may be a lot less discriminatory with regard to health, education etc… but unfortunately some people’s attitudes will never change whereever in the world they are.

Here’s to the best of human nature, wherever we may find it,

Maya

The human race has many flaws, one being pack animals, the Spanish are notorious (Within Spanish circles) for having groups that don’t welcome outsiders easily.

Another few flaws are believing we are civilised, we stereotype and we trust everything we are told by the media and authority.

The most important one is not accepting our flaws, ignoring them and carrying on in complete ignorance.

“Flaws”? Hardly. They may not be ideal in your mind’s eye of what members of society should be and act like, but they’re certainly not “flaws” if you consider that these come from a billion years of evolution that put our species at the top of the food chain. These “flaws” are part of our evolutionary advantage.

The problem, perhaps, is that we aren’t physically evolving as fast as technology and society are. Nothing we can do about that except try to find civilized ways of dealing with it.