Negotiations on Gibraltar’s Post-Brexit Agreement Hit a Standstill

For a moment, it was thought that everything was done and that the white smoke announcement would be immediate. But negotiations have run aground and the agreement on Gibraltar —in limbo since Brexit left it out of the EU— now seems more complicated than ever.

The governor of La Roca, David Steel, accuses Spain of being responsible for the stagnation by having asked “a regulatory framework on the management of the airport that implies its Spanish jurisdiction”, something that he considers intolerable since it directly affects the question of sovereignty. “In the 2020 New Year’s Eve Framework Agreement, the issue of sovereignty was set aside. Now Spain has reintroduced it,” emphasizes the representative of the British Crown in Gibraltar to The Times.

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On New Year’s Eve 2020, a few hours after the transition period ended, Brexit, London and Madrid managed to close on the edge an agreement in principle to avoid strict controls on the only land border – along with that of Ireland – that now links the UK to the EU. The text contained the guidelines for closing a treaty between the European Commission and the United Kingdom on the Rock. But this is only a temporary solution that can be terminated at any time.

If you want flexibility in the fence, you must outsource the Schengen border to the port and airport of El Peñón. But that requires the presence of agents from Spain (Schengen member). And therein lies the crux of the matter. Especially considering that the land where the airport is built was not contemplated in the Treaty of Utrecht (1713-1715). The British got hold of it in the 19th century, when epidemics forced the population to move to the isthmus.

The sources consulted on the negotiations had always been practically hermetic, afraid that any revelation could cloud things. For this reason, the statements of a figure with the weight of Steel who rarely speaks to the press now call their attention. There are many who interpret this as a British strategy with the aim of drawing the attention of Brussels to expedite talks which are now at a standstill.

After London and Brussels managed to put an end to the controversy over the Northern Ireland Protocol last February, with all the complexities that this entails for a territory with difficult coexistence between Catholics and Protestants, it was thought that the necessary momentum would be achieved to resolve the matter of the Rockthe last pending Brexit dispute.

At the beginning of the year, optimism reigned, but finally the white smoke did not arrive, and the elections for July 23 only make things more complicated. In the United Kingdom, there is concern that a possible PP government with Vox could make the road difficult. The British newspaper presents the ranks of Santiago Abascal as an extreme right-wing party that “has previously requested the closure of Gibraltar’s land border with Spain to suffocate the territory and regain sovereignty“.

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“If they come to power, the pact is practically dead,” he assures The Times a senior Spanish official from anonymity. For his part, a spokesman for the British government assured this Tuesday that the agreement must wait until after the appointment with the polls in Spain and insisted that “will not do anything to compromise British sovereignty” from the colony.

Around 30,000 people cross the gate every day. Among them, 15,000 workers, of which 10,000 are Spanish in an area like Campo de Gibraltar, where the unemployment rate rarely falls below 30%. Therefore, Brexit forces Madrid and La Roca to find a pragmatic solution of coexistence. Although the ghost of no deal it is always there.

In the negotiations there is talk of “an area of ​​shared prosperity”, a euphemism to avoid talking about sovereignty over the British colony. But it is sovereignty, after all, that has marked the context of the last 300 years. And the issue that, ultimately, now makes the long-awaited white smoke difficult. Nobody wants to close a gate that shakes both the economy of the Rock and the surrounding Spanish regions. But, at the same time, nobody wants to sign any term, any period, any comma that may affect the issue of sovereignty in an international treaty.

The Foreign Minister, José Manuel Albares, has stressed several times that the framework of the New Year’s Eve agreement contemplates that Spain, as a member of Schengen, would be responsible for guaranteeing the standards of this space, and therefore should assume the controls in the port and the Peñón airport, although it would have the support of the European border agency —Frontex— during a transitional period of four years.

However, the Governor of Gibraltar now points out that the UK must ensure that the presence of Frontex agents on the border “is not stretched to sovereignty, that it does not go beyond what we can accept in terms of jurisdiction and control” importance of Gibraltar now is bigger than it has been for 40 years, since the end of the Cold War,” Steel says. “With a resurgent Russia and an assertive China, its strategic importance as an entry point for the Atlantic and the Mediterranean is obvious“, hue.

The Spanish Government considers that “The ball is in the UK’s court” when deciding on the proposal presented last year by Spain and the European Commission to create a zone of shared prosperity on the Rock. He believes that London and, in particular, the Government of Gibraltar are responsible for the deadlock in the negotiations.

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For his part, Fabian Picardo, the Prime Minister of Gibraltar, is optimistic “if the issues on the table do not mean that neither party has to lose on a matter of fundamental importance.” “The only time that I would be an obstacle to advance is when the proposed topic is like sovereigntyjurisdiction or control, and then I will not only be difficult, I will be the stumbling block on which everything falls,” he stresses.

In Brussels there is interest in getting the negotiations to move forward. It would not be understood to reach an agreement on Northern Ireland —infinitely more complex— and not on the Rock. In any case, they want to give place to Spain, which, as a member of the bloc, managed to get the EU to guarantee it veto power for any pact that was reached regarding the Rock. In addition, Madrid got the EU to mention, for the first time, Gibraltar as a colonythus joining the criterion that the UN maintains on the territory since 1967.

2023-06-27 17:32:50
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