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Date Published: 27/09/2022

ARCHIVED - Update on driving licences for Brits in Spain from the British Embassy: Tuesday September 27

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The British Embassy has released another video explaining its “progress” on the driving licence negotiations

<span style='color:#780948'>ARCHIVED</span> - Update on driving licences for Brits in Spain from the British Embassy: Tuesday September 27

The British Embassy in Madrid has released another update on the status of negotiations to get British nationals resident in Spain back on the roads.

After nearly two weeks of silence from the Embassy on the current status of driving licence negotiations, the Ambassador Hugh Elliot has posted a video on the Brits in Spain Facebook page, though frankly there’s little new information or hope being offered to Brits who are still unable to drive in Spain.

Since May 1, Brits with residency status in Spain for over six months and who use British driving licences have been forbidden from driving. Previously, the British Embassy in Madrid announced that by the end of July Brits would once again be able to exchange their UK driving licences for Spanish ones and drive using their British licences for a period of six more months following lengthy negotiations between Spain and the UK.

The negotiations are still in progress, and are being led by the Department of Transport (DfT) on the UK side and the Interior Ministry’s DVLA equivalent agency, Dirección General de Tráfico (DGT), on the Spanish side, in collaboration with The British Embassy in Spain and the Spanish Ministry of Foreign Affairs.

In the latest update, issued on Tuesday September 27, the Embassy insisted, as they have many times before that they “hear and understand” people’s frustration at the fact that this issue is dragging on so long with seemingly no end in sight, and that the Ambassador’s estimated deadline for Brits to be back on the road by the end of July has been and gone with no change in the state of affairs.

“The truth is it has taken much longer as there have been unforeseen issues that we have been working very hard to resolve,” said the Ambassador in the latest video, “and I’m as disappointed as you are by the length of time this is actually taking.”

He assured that they were resolving the outstanding issues and that there are “only a couple of issues left to resolve”, which remain – as ever – a “top priority” which they are in discussions about “almost daily”.

The Ambassador repeated his insistence that he couldn’t give an exact date for when they would finally be resolved, nor specific updates after every single meeting.

He further stated, in response to a petition by many would-be motorists to be allowed to drive again until the agreement is finally reached, that this request was “not in the gift of the UK government”, but rather it was only the Spanish government who could provide that, something which it had expressly denied.

Some have speculated that this is so that they could get more money from learner drivers who would have to take their Spanish driving test to get a Spanish driving licence, which remains the standing advice from the Embassy for anyone who needs to drive “urgently”.

However, many have reported extreme delays and long waits to get a date to take their practical test, a complaint for which the Embassy had no answer in its most recent update.

>>> Find all the latest motoring and travel news here or join our Driving in Spain Facebook group for regular updates <<<

Image: Brits in Spain / Facebook

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