Is it time for foreigners and voting rights to change? The next municipal elections will also be open to foreigners who are not part of the territory of the European Union (EU) for the first time. For this reason, some have stressed that the principle of national sovereignty is in some way questioned, while others have opened the way to transnational citizenship. Let us examine how the right to vote of foreigners will actually be exercised.

First of all, it must be said that the right to vote will be reserved exclusively for municipal elections. Secondly, there are two very different doors to the right to vote. The first is that of the members of the EU, who will want a formal declaration showing their willingness to exercise this right. Non-EU citizens must meet the following requirements: in addition to the formal declaration to be delivered by their predecessors, they must have a residence permit for at least five years and their territory must have a reciprocity agreement with Spain, which means that they can also vote in their territory. Therefore, and taking into account these conditions, the nationals of the following territories may vote: Bolivia, Chile, Colombia, Ecuador, Iceland, Norway, New Zealand, Paraguay, Peru and Cape Verde. But only those who have been around for a long time.

All of these conditions strongly determine the possibility of participation of foreigners. Thus, according to data provided by the National Electoral Institute (INE), the electoral register of foreigners in the whole state is made up of 465,661 people, representing 1.3% of the total electoral register, in the Basque Country this figure is even lower, precisely 0.7%. We have to see how many of them are going to vote. The other element to be mentioned is that, among those who have demonstrated their willingness to vote, a majority is EU nationality (88.9% in Spain), and specifically the former EU-12 nationality. Likewise, those who have to vote mainly represent immigration linked to tourism and not so much to economic immigration.

In short: although there are symbolic changes, in practice the change is minimal and for the moment we are not on the verge of questioning national sovereignty or building transnational citizenship. What really affects the right to vote of foreigners is the acquisition of Spanish nationality. As an example, the number of people who were nationalized in the years 2002-2010 was 444,184, almost the same as the number of foreign voters.