Andorra news for Cynics. Where is Andorra airport?

Finally you can download and have a relaxing read; warning, the annexes stretch to nearly 7,000 pages. There are two files:-

Overall concerns in my initial discussions indicate :-

And importantly,

Any feedback is welcome, more to follow !!!

Next week we will begin discussions on this sample Directive:-

EU Directive 2019/904 specifies that by July 2024 all disposable plastic bottles must have nondetachable tops, and I’m sure that we are all beginning to find now how annoying they are when you try to drink from a bottle of tomato juice, and it spills down your brand-new white T-shirt, or a bottle of water that spills into your lap and makes look like you've just peed yourself.

So, when we include the likes of bendy bananas, the fact that drinking water does not hydrate you, swedes can only be called turnips in a Cornish pasty, and five rungs make a ladder, we had better have a closer look at some of these directives that Andorra is signing up to. It would appear there are more nondetachable plastic top specialists in PWC and the EU than there are specialists in EU law in this part of the world. But, let us be patient and wait for the Catalan translation!!!

This referendum on whether to accept the accord has now been pushed back to late summer 2025.

All the negotiations of this accord for the past 10 years have been conducted predominantly in English, and a bit of French and a bit of Spanish. The final accord was signed off in December 2023 and since then we have been patiently waiting for an army of Catalan interpreters for the translation which in my mind is largely irrelevant. I have tracked down this final agreement in English and I will be posting snippets as and when I can be bothered.

Surely the first “line of attack” from our brave team of negotiators would have been to have demanded that Catalan be included as an official language of the EU. This at a time when Andorra is trying to portray the importance of Catalan by requiring all new residents to speak it but that is a different story which will be covered in due course.  Please also note that for example Maltese is an official language and there are approximately 450,000 native speakers. Catalan is not an official language but there are over more than 10 million native speakers. What we will be discussing over the next 12 months of (no doubt) project fear is pretty much discussing the Magna Carta once it has been translated into Icelandic.  Let us vote on what has been signed not what somebody interprets that to be (US does not mean us it means the minority resident population of Andorra, namely working class Andorrans).

As a summary then, there are an estimated 9, 000 (give or take a few thousand) odd quoted references to EU directives that at the sweep of a pen Andorra will be signed up to. Has anyone read any of these references, and if you are not familiar with EU law it is a minefield with the field is very small and the mines are very big and plentiful.  As an example: –

And there are over 6,000 pages of this gobbledegook with several regulations per page. I mean has anybody read each of these to see how they apply and whether each one is advantageous or detrimental to Andorra?.  And why bother with this Catalan translation, it will just become Catalan gobbledegook. Can anybody point to the regulation that specifies that plastic bottle tops must now be attached to the bottle itself, (yes they are annoying and how much of the cost industry?) Answers on a self-addressed envelope please. The same goes for the plastic thingy that used to hold six packs together now has been replaced by some flimsy cardboard replica that is about as useful as a plastic frying pan (well at least they haven’t been banned yet).

This is the link to the agreement so that anybody with a penchant for night-time novels with that soporific effect can get truly excited.

There was a meeting, very well attended by over a 1000 people, that did not have much information to offer, and the main complaint from participants seems to be the there was not much information to offer. They were assured that the full accord will be ready soon for distribution, the problem it seems is that it is all in English as the agreements are in English as Catalan is not an officially recognised language in the EU. The Catalan translations will be ready shortly,  one wonders why the English version cannot be available already , or ever will be? In 2018 a staggering 180,000 translators worked within the EU framework, none it seems well versed in Catalan. The Diari, the local newspaper proudly reported that fears of freedom of movement can be safely put to rest since in 2023 Andorra authorised residency permits for 2,000 EU nationals and that includes seasonal workers as well as passive and active. The newspaper stated that this figure would have been reduced to 368 under the new accord. Firstly they misinterpreted the figure of 368 which at the meeting was mentioned as being the minimum number which Andorra would be required to take in. Secondly of the 2,000 from 2023, it is easy to estimate that an absolute minimum of 1,700 would have been seasonal workers, so given the proud announcement of a reduction to 368, that means all restaurants and bars will become self service with an honesty box as a till, and you will need to walk up the slopes to ski down. The point here is that reporting and the lack of information is not helping the Government's case. Incidentally the other estimated 300 permits for passive and active, NO bond will be required for EU nationals (nor police certificates) !

Andorra once again, and as we residents always know and are proud of, is top of the chats, No 1 !!!, for the safest country and lowest crime rate, courtesy of Ceoworld magazine who were instrumental in analysing 146 countries statistics, They quote "With the world turned upside-down and inside-out by international conflict, determining the safest countries is now more important than ever. 7 of the top 10 safest countries are in Asia.  Only Andorra, Norway, and Liechtenstein rank in the top 10 without being in Asia! "  Spain ranks just above Bulgaria in 45 place while France is sandwiched languishing between Kenya and Uganda in 110 place. This recently appeared in the local newspaper Diari, but it was the comments that deserve attention, centred around the question why give all of this up for the freedom of movement with this EU accord ? Just another question that someone, somewhere will have to address and with support for yes in the referendum now down in the last 3 years from  around 59% to a current 31%, a drop of 28% or so, there is work to be done by our politicians, and this referendum seems to have been pushed back to 2025 !!