Brexit: an agreement reached at the last moment for Gibraltar

It was perhaps the last thorny post-Brexit issue. What fate was to be reserved for the inhabitants of Gibraltar, the British enclave located south of the Iberian Peninsula? Spain and the United Kingdom have reached “an agreement in principle” which will allow freedom of movement at the border to be maintained, Spanish Foreign Minister Arancha Gonzalez Laya announced Thursday. The Schengen agreements, which guarantee the free movement of people between the 26 European states without passport control, will now apply to Gibraltar, the minister said.

The agreement, which was reached just hours before the entry into force of Brexit, Thursday at midnight, thus prevents the border between Gibraltar and Spain from being transformed from Friday into the only “hard” border between the United Kingdom and the European Union. “There is no longer a barrier. Schengen applies to Gibraltar [dans ses relations] with Spain, which makes it possible to remove the controls between Gibraltar and Spain, this makes it possible to remove the barrier, ”said Arancha Gonzalez Laya at a press conference in Madrid. “We have reached an agreement in principle with the United Kingdom which will serve as the basis for a future treaty between the European Union and the United Kingdom concerning Gibraltar,” she continued.

A race against time

The minister said in particular that she “had a thought for the citizens of Gibraltar”, who feared the effects of a lack of agreement and who, “now, can breathe and must feel relieved”. She stressed that in the absence of an agreement between London and Madrid, Gibraltar would have been “the only place where a hard Brexit would have applied”, that is to say without an agreement between the United Kingdom and the United Kingdom. ‘European Union. The agreement “will allow us to remove barriers and move forward towards an area of ​​shared prosperity. Firmness in principles, progress for citizens ”, the Spanish Prime Minister, Pedro Sánchez tweeted shortly after the announcement.

Since the post-Brexit agreement concluded on December 24 by London and Brussels, which did not apply to the case of Gibraltar, Spain and the United Kingdom were engaged in a real race against time to avoid a return to Gibraltar a border qualified as “hard”, that is to say with passport controls for people and customs controls on goods at the border with the enclave. Some 15,000 people, the vast majority of Spaniards residing in Spain, cross the border every day to go to work in the British enclave.

In order to limit the impact of failed negotiations and the return of border controls, Gibraltar’s local government had established a register to allow these thousands of cross-border workers to continue to come to the Rock every day without complications. But the return of passports would have affected tourism, which represents an important source of income for this very prosperous enclave whose economy is based on services. Authorities in Gibraltar also feared logistical problems for imports, as all food products consumed in the enclave were imported.