Spaniards go to the polls Sunday to sign up to a European Union constitution which most voters seem set to back - but thousands of foreign residents from other EU states are frustrated they cannot take part, either in their adopted country or back home. The hundreds of thousands of EU nationals who live on the east coast around Alicante and the tourist hotspot of Benidorm, as well as on the southern Costa del Sol, are a case in point.
Many are long-term British residents living their dream of year-round sunshine, while others are a hotch potch of Germans, Dutch and Scandinavians.
Spain's vote is only open to Spanish nationals - although foreign residents here can by contrast cast their ballots in Spain in European and municipal elections.
Now many are discovering a vote in the mother country for the EU constitution will also prove impossible.
"I thought we could take part in our own ballot, which (British Prime Minister Tony) Blair is supposed to be organising next year. But as I live here it seems that's not the case, so people like me are excluded," said Barbara, an expatriot in her 60s from the Welsh city of Swansea.
A large proportion of foreign residents are pensioners who have severed most links with their homeland and, crucially, when it comes to voting, are no longer on the electoral register of their country of birth.
Britons can vote at home if they have been on the British electoral register over the past 15 years, but many have been away for longer and so will slip unwittingly through the net.
"I think it's disgusting. It's our future as well," complains Lucy Jones, who settled into Spanish life more than 20 years ago through marriage.
Ana Thomas, a Madrid-based Swede, chimes in: "We don't need all this homogenisation. And since they brought in the euro Spain has become so expensive. It's more expensive to have a cup of coffee in Spain now than in Stockholm," she complains.
Notoriously eurosceptic Britons on the coast tend to agree.
"I don't want a European superstate amd I fear the constitution will prove a neat way of locking voters into just that," says Bob, a retired businessman.
Around a dozen EU member states plan to hold a referendum, with Spain going first as the 25-nation bloc seeks to simplify its decision-making process.
Slovenia, Lithuania and Hungary have already ratified the text through parliamentary votes.
British diplomatic sources note legislation on a British referendum due to take place next year has yet to be drawn up - but polls consistently suggest the "no" camp would win the day.
"It (legislation) will be drawn up along with the referendum bill itself. But in any case the 15-year qualifying period seems pretty reasonable," the sources told AFP.
Tony Caban, a Briton based in the coastal town of Javea, where he serves as a municipal councillor, is unimpressed that 30 years of Spanish residence will count for nothing next Sunday.
"We are disenfranchised - and there must be about 100,000 of us at a guess.
"The Spanish government has put out very one-sided information, saying, 'oh it's a wonderful thing, just sign up'. But it will change Spain from a country into a state, such as a US state," says Caban.
"The illogical part of it is we can vote in a European election, so why not let us vote on the EU constitution? We should be on an equal footing with the Spaniards."
As their Spanish hosts prepare to say yes to the constitution a whole range of newcomers ranging from British pensioners and sunseekers to low profile Chinese shopworkers - plus Den and Elena, a young Russian couple from Rostov-on-Don recently arrived in Benidorm - will await the outcome.
Holidaying Germans are also angry, with Berlin due to approve the constitution in parliament rather than risk a "no" vote upsetting the EU applecart.
A group of German tourists strolling along Benidorm's Levante beach turn around as two vehicles emblazoned with EU constitution stickers trundle past, loudhailers blaring out Beethoven's Ode to Joy, the EU anthem.
The irony is not lost on Gerd, a 40-something German enjoying a brief winter break with colleagues.
"The European Union voted for Beethoven - but if he were alive today Beethoven, as a German, would not have been able to vote for the European Union," he grumbles, to general approval.
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