The Spanish government has threatened to remove the rights of British residents in Spain if Britain doesn't offer similar guarantees for Spanish citizens living in Britain, according to a report in Spanish influential daily, El Pais.
The caretaker foreign minister, Josep Borrell, has already conveyed this concern to the British government of Prime Minister Boris Johnson, and has warned that, if there is no equivalent move from the United Kingdom as the country leaves the European Union, the Spanish framework for British residents will decline.
The Spanish government has urgently passed legislation in order to protect the rights of the 365,967 Britons who are officially resident in the country, but is yet to see similar mechanisms put in place in the United Kingdom for the Spaniards who have made that country their home, according to a report in the Spanish national newspaper.