A warm welcome to immigrants

Yesterday I wrote about the problems of immigration in Britain but what of immigration here in this part of Spain.

Alicante has the highest immigrant population of any province in Spain.

Data shows that 62.63% of the foreign population in this province came from other European countries. In total there are more than 290,439 foreigners out of which the largest group are British (130,000) making up 44% of the total followed by the Germans, Rumanians and the Dutch.

Bucking the trend for the rest of the Valencian Community and for Spain in general, the immigrant population of Alicante has increased over last year. Experts put this down to the fact that many of the people who come to live here are not “economic immigrants”. Many people still come to Alicante to retire just like we did. The main exceptions are of course the Rumanians and Bulgarians who are here to seek employment.

The Conselleria de Solidaridad y Ciudadanía says that the region is a land of welcome adding that the Comunitat is a crucible of cultures and a sample of effective policies of integration developed by the Valencian Autonomous Government.