The agreement on Gibraltar's situation regarding Europe is imminent. The Foreign Ministers of Spain and the United Kingdom, José Manuel Albares and David Lammy, flew to Brussels this Wednesday to meet with Commissioner Maros Sefcovic, in charge of the negotiation. The Chief Minister of Gibraltar, Fabián Picardo, also joined the meeting.
The alarms about this meeting went off on Tuesday morning when Picardo posted on X (formerly Twitter) about Lammy's trip to the Rock, where they held a meeting to "agree on the final parameters of the negotiation." Picardo then explained that they were going to travel to Brussels for the meeting. "It is time to try to finalize the agreements for a lasting and stable relationship between #Gibraltar and the EU/Spain that is safe, stable, and beneficial, protecting our population and providing security to border workers to achieve greater prosperity for everyone in our region," he expressed on social media.
Although a press conference with all the details will not take place until this afternoon, Gibraltar will enter Schengen, the treaty for the free movement of EU citizens, of which the UK was never a part when it was in the EU. This means that there will be Spanish police at the Gibraltar airport customs, as once that barrier is crossed, one enters a space formed by 29 countries without borders. This was one of the main hurdles at the beginning of the negotiations, which seems to have been overcome in the final text.
The agreement, therefore, allows the 15,000 Spaniards working in Gibraltar to continue crossing the border daily, and approximately 10,000 'llanitos' - as the inhabitants of the British colony are known - to enter Spain whenever they wish. It is the consolidation of the system that existed before Brexit, now adapted to the new reality of the UK outside the EU. The mayor of La Línea, Manuel Franco, had stated to the conservative British newspaper 'Daily Telegraph' last October that if an agreement was not reached and a 'hard' border was imposed, Spanish workers could end up queuing for fourteen hours to enter the Rock.
The measure is the core of what the Governments of Spain and the UK, along with the EU and the British colony, will announce today in Brussels. It is also one of the most persistent demands of the Madrid Government. The authorities of Gibraltar had shown their rejection of the presence of Spanish police at the airport (which is also built on land not included in the Treaty of Utrecht that gave London sovereignty over the Rock) and had even suggested that they be behind screens with smoked glass.
Although there will be Gibraltarian officials at customs, the operation will mainly be carried out by the Spanish, who will also have the authority to make arrests and inspect luggage. According to sources from the Spanish Government quoted by the British newspaper 'Daily Telegraph', "our goal has been to make as much progress as possible and close the agreement as soon as possible."
As far as is known, the agreement does not address the entry and exit of weapons - including nuclear ones - or ships - including nuclear submarines - from Gibraltar, illicit trafficking from the Rock to Spain, pollution of Spanish waters originating from the colony, or the territorial expansion of Gibraltar into the sea.
According to diplomatic sources consulted by this newspaper, it has been decisive that yesterday the European Commission decided to propose the removal of Gibraltar from the EU list of third countries at high risk with strategic deficiencies in their regimes for combating money laundering and terrorism financing (Anti Money Laundering List, AML).
The first agreement on Gibraltar was established on New Year's Eve 2020. On December 31, a "principle of agreement" was reached to lay the groundwork for negotiations. Announced at a press conference by the then Foreign Minister, Arantxa González Laya, she announced that "Spain will be responsible for Schengen control, and a four-year period of control by Frotex agents is established."
The Spanish Government delegated the negotiations to the European Union, and no member from Campo de Gibraltar sat at the table. This lack of representation contrasts with the other party, as the Chief Minister of the Rock, Fabián Picardo, attends all political meetings involving the European Union and the UK. The Gibraltar Treaty has been stuck all this time, first with technical meetings that were slowed down due to the national absence, causing the technicians handling the files to review them multiple times.
After 18 rounds of consultations, political meetings began. The first was held on April 12, 2024, with Albares and his British counterpart, David Cameron. Another took place on May 15 of that year and was halted due to Gibraltar's early elections. This format had not been repeated since last September, which now seems to be solidifying progress.