Britons may need £52 visa to visit mainland Europe after Brexit

Visa-free travel plan derailed again by Spanish demands over status of Gibraltar

Daniel Boffey in Brussels
Wed 20 Feb 2019 12.22 GMT

British tourists travelling to continental Europe may need to pay £52 for a visa in a few weeks after Spanish demands over the status of Gibraltar again derailed Brussels’ preparations for Brexit.

Agreement on legislation exempting UK nationals from requiring the travel permit is mired in a dispute over whether the British overseas territory should be described as a “colony” in the EU’s statute book.

Spain has insisted, with the reluctant support of the other 26 member states, that a footnote containing the contentious description of the disputed territory is added to the legislation.

But on Wednesday morning the European parliament rejected the language proposed by the council of the European Union, the body that represents the member states.

-snip-