Reply from the Caravan Club this morning----
Hello
Thank you very much for your recent enquiry, and please accept my apologies that your original e-mail has not been answered.
I am not surprised that there is such a large amount of conflicting information as trying to get sense out of the Spanish Authorities is very difficult and extremely slow! I will, however explain where we are at the moment:
At the present time we are still trying to confirm the size of marker boards that the Spanish police will accept, the regulations stipulate that the marker boards must be 500mm x 250mm or manufactured to ECE70 regulations, I found two companies here in the UK manufacture their marker boards to ECE70 regulations and they are 565mm x 200mm I contacted the DTG (Direccion General de Trafico in Spain) to make sure that our marker boards would be accepted by the Spanish Police and the DTG said "no the marker boards must be 500mm x 250mm" so I then looked at numerous Spanish websites trying to find the correct sized marker boards only to find that the ones you can buy in Spain are the same size as the ones in the UK! I have gone back to the DTG and asked the same question again and I am waiting for their response.
The other problem with marker boards is that you would need to remove them from the back of your caravan when driving in the UK. I have raised a complaint with SOLVIT which is an organisation set up to solve problems caused by the misapplication of EU rules in Member States, and I am waiting for their response. (Which could take 8-12 weeks).
So in summary:
Caravanners have been fined between _150.00 - _300.00 for not have the marker plates in Spain. (It has been a requirement to have them since 1998 but until the beginning of this year the law was not being enforced)
We still do not have confirmation that the UK marker boards are accepted (however I would be amazed if the Spanish police actually bothered to measure the marker boards as the discrepancy in size is only 6-5cm)
We are trying to confirm with the powers that be in the EU that the Spanish are allowed to enforce this law on visiting UK outfits
It is really difficult to give you advice, as it may well be the case that you could travel to Spain and have no problems at all, as the authorities in Spain may move on to another law and stop measuring UK outfits and issuing fines. Or alternatively SOLVIT may decide that their law is unfair. I have prepared an information sheet which I attach for you, this will be put on the internet and the magazine once we have confirmation from the DTG and a reply from SOLVIT.
I will of course put any updates in the monthly magazine but it takes weeks and weeks to get a reply from any organisation in Spain.
Please do not hesitate to contact me if you require any further assistance.
Best regards
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