Gibraltar fence: between demolition and reinforcement

In the spirit of the 2020 New Year’s Eve Agreement, the then Spanish and British Foreign Ministers, Arancha González Laya and Dominic Raab, considered the dream of tearing down the border fence between La Línea and Gibraltar. Four years later, the opposite could happen, with the new community controls reinforcing it, if an agreement is not reached before November on the Treaty around the Rock that Great Britain and the European Union have been negotiating since then.

Although these controls will be established at a Community level and are not directly related to the negotiation of the Treaty, the hard Brexit will be established from that date at the Border, given that logically and as has already been announced, Gibraltar will also put in place its own filters.

Yesterday, the newspaper «El País» offered an extensive report on this matter, under the expressive title «Spain and Gibraltar prepare to tighten controls at the Border in case the agreement fails».

“In the autumn,” the newspaper continued, “the new Schengen border protocols will be implemented while the presence of Spanish police in the colony is blocking negotiations.”

The article, signed by Miguel González and Jesús A. Cañas, cites Spanish government sources to remind us that our country “is responsible for controlling entry into the Schengen area, since the United Kingdom has not signed the treaty; that controls at the Spanish border would be transferred to the port and airport of the Rock if the agreement is sealed; and that Picardo “cannot claim a special Schengen protocol for Gibraltar” and, much less, that “Spanish police officers on duty operate without weapons and without uniforms.”

«Since the transitional period provided for in the United Kingdom’s withdrawal agreement from the EU ended on 1 January 2021, Gibraltar has been, for all intents and purposes, the territory of a third country and the line separating the British colony from the Peninsula, an external border. However, the expectation that an agreement would be reached that would involve the demolition of La Verja and the free movement of people and goods across the isthmus left the situation of the British colony in limbo,» they add.

In the article, the newspaper cites that a Spanish parliamentary response, in which it was stated that the National Police would carry out Schengen controls in Gibraltarian territory, while Frontex agents would perform an auxiliary function, provoked the rejection of Fabian Picardo’s government, assuring that this circumstance was not part of the New Year’s Eve agreement and that his government would not tolerate “Spanish boots” on the Rock.

“Although the Schengen agreement requires that British citizens cannot cross its borders without stamping their passport and justifying the reason for their trip, nor extend their stay for more than 90 days in a three-month period, Gibraltarians have been able to cross to this side of the border, where many have their second residence, for the last 43 months without any requirement other than showing their Gibraltarian identity card,” explains the report in El País.

In this context, as this digital and other media have also anticipated, “this situation will change next November, when the new Entry and Exit System (SES) of the Schengen area comes into operation, which will involve the scanning of passports and the registration of barometric data (fingerprints and facial image), to which both Gibraltarian citizens and British residents in Gibraltar must submit. In addition, in mid-2025, the ETIAS system will be launched, which will require nationals of all third countries for which a visa is not required for short-term visits, such as the United Kingdom, to request prior authorization to enter the Schengen territory. It is a model similar to ESTA, the permit that must be requested online before traveling to the United States.”

«The implementation of these new systems is in line with a timetable for all external borders of the Schengen area and is not related to the stalemate in the three-party negotiations (Spain, the United Kingdom and the European Commission) on Gibraltar. However, Spanish diplomatic sources do not hide the fact that it will put an end to the current situation of “illegality” and will serve to gradually introduce controls that will have to be applied in any case if an agreement is not reached.»

According to El País, both parties have been working for some time on an alternative in case there is no treaty to avoid a hard Brexit at the border. From the very beginning, the Government of Gibraltar has been explaining its plans in this regard, but those of the Spanish Government are unknown.

“The problem is that Picardo compares the current situation, in which he has all the advantages and no disadvantages, with the cost of an agreement with Spain; when the correct thing to do is to compare it with a no-deal scenario,” underline the sources in the Spanish government cited by “El País”.

Carmen Word, crossing the gate at the reopening in December 1982. Photo: Miguel Ángel Aguila

This would be “a situation more similar to that which existed before Spain joined the EU in 1986. If the agreement is concluded on the negotiated terms, all residents of the Rock will be exempt from submitting to the SES and the ETIAS, but until that happens, if it happens, both will have to be applied.” It should be remembered that the Fence was opened for pedestrian purposes on December 15, 1982, after the decision adopted at the first cabinet meeting chaired by Felipe González in history. It was on February 5, 1985, when, after the Brussels agreement of the previous year and after the Geneva talks between the United Kingdom and Spain, the border was also reopened to the transit of vehicles and goods. In fact, it was a sine qua non condition for Brussels and Great Britain, then a full member of the then European Economic Community, to end the blockade imposed by Francisco Franco in 1969. Spain later signed its own Treaty of Accession to the European Economic Community on 12 January 1985 and its effective entry took place on 1 January 1986.

“At the moment,” says El País, “both parties are preparing for a NNO (No Negociated Outcome “or divorce without agreement) and planning new infrastructures on the border in case La Verja, instead of being torn down, has to be reinforced. The effects of the NNO could be partially mitigated with a bilateral agreement on border traffic with the Rock, but both parties doubt that the climate is conducive to this after a failure that would leave deep wounds and misgivings. For the Spanish Executive, the change of tenant at 10 Downing Street and the push of the new British Government may be the last opportunity before, in the autumn, the new controls are imposed at La Verja and Commissioner Sefkovic, who until now has represented the European Commission in the negotiations, leaves his post. This would miss a train that may never pass again.”

See the full article from El País, in the following link:

Opening photo: Demonstration for a humanitarian border, held in 2023