Visa chaos for 4,500 British students due to study in Spain within weeks

Visa chaos for 4,500 British students due to study in Spain within weeks. The chaos is said to be caused due to Brexit.

It is only weeks before British students are set to begin studying in Spain but many are facing visa chaos. Universities have called on the Spanish embassy to let students in. Students have been preparing for many months and some undergraduates are said to have waited over a month to get their appointment to get their documents that they need to enter Spain.

Students are beginning to worry that they may miss the start of term. The changes to the rules were brought in after Brexit, and are hitting many students hard.  Both the Spanish embassy and the foreign office have been approached by UK universities in a bid to convince them the students should be allowed to complete their applications after they arrive in Spain.

Speaking to Today, Vivienne Stern the Director of Universities UK International said: ‘We started getting these messages a few weeks ago and they’re getting increasing desperate.

‘And I think there are lots of students and their parents who are increasingly anxious and we’re starting to hear students are cancelling their plans to study abroad.’

One student hoping to head to Madrid next week is Ella Perret. She has been studying at Cardiff University and had been hoping to head to Spain as part of her law degree.

Ella told the BBC: ‘I haven’t booked a flight or accommodation because I don’t know if I’m going.’

The task of getting documents in order costs hundreds of pounds according to the student but she still feels that she may miss out on Spain. The visa documents have to be issued within 90 days of leaving the country. Ella applied for her Visa in June to meet these deadlines.

She also required proof of income, a criminal record check, a medical certificate and proof that she had been accepted to a University in Spain. All the documents then need to be officially translated before they can be used.

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