2023-11-19 08:24:03
Gibraltar voted massively and in only one direction in the June 2016 referendum. It was the place where the United Kingdom’s permanence in the European Union received the highest percentage of votes (95.9%) and one of those that continues to fear the consequences that can have the exit. The matter is not trivial since the Rock, whose border with Spain is the only land border – along with that of Ireland – now unites the United Kingdom with the community bloc. Since Brexit, the future of Gibraltar is up in the air. The negotiations to reach an agreement were paralyzed by the electoral call in the Rock and the Spanish political uncertainty as a result of the elections of July 23. With the re-election last October of Picardo and the inauguration of Pedro Sánchez this week, the countdown to the agreement has begun, although there does not seem to be any rush to close the agreement.
Not in vain, almost a year has passed – it will be next November 25 – since Spain and the European Commission presented the United Kingdom with a proposal for the Campo de Gibraltar to be transformed into an “area of shared prosperity” that includes, among other measures, the elimination of the Gibraltar fence to promote the mobility of people and goods between the colony and the EU. And during these twelve months, there has been no response from the British government. Diplomatic sources assure LA RAZÓN that “if they accept it, the agreement would be signed tomorrow.”
During this year, the United Kingdom has experienced various government crises, which have also had an impact on the Foreign Ministry. If a year ago, there was James Cleverly, today an old acquaintance has just landed, David Cameron, architect of Brexit. These same sources assure that “he already knows the dossier” so there would be no reason to delay the negotiation of the agreement.
The acting Foreign Minister, José Manuel Albares, who through Twitter has congratulated him in addition to showing his desire that with him at the head of British diplomacy the long-awaited agreement that defines the future relationship with Gibraltar will finally be reached.
«My congratulations on your appointment as Foreign Minister of the United Kingdom. We will work together to strengthen relationships and to achieve an area of shared prosperity that benefits Campo de Gibraltar-Gibraltar,” Albares wrote on the social network X, formerly Twitter. A priori it does not seem that we are going to have an agreement because the head of foreign affairs has changed. Not in vain, Cameron returns as Foreign Minister, but the direction of foreign policy continues to depend on the Prime Minister, although there is also an informal commitment in the United Kingdom to take into account the opinion of Gibraltar. At the Rock, Picardo will continue for four years. In fact, these portfolio changes have already happened in recent years and did not represent a change in the negotiations.
With no date yet for the 14th formal round of negotiations to be held, nothing indicates that the long-awaited agreement will materialize before the end of the year. The 13th formal round of negotiations (the first was in October 2021) was held in April last month after the United Kingdom signed an agreement with Northern Ireland, a priori a much more complicated negotiation than that of Gibraltar. Despite being considered a catalyst for negotiation, the inability to iron out differences related especially to border surveillance by Frontex has prevented great progress.
The experts consulted by LA RAZÓN dismantle the myth that the agreement with Ireland would accelerate the Gibraltar agreement, nor will the entry on the scene of the man who promoted the United Kingdom’s departure from the European Union. “In the case of Gibraltar, the Gibraltarian identity has an anti-Spanish component of defending every millimeter of what they consider territory and waters, something that does not coincide with what in Spain we consider Gibraltarian territory based on the Treaty of Utrecht,” explains Luis. Rodrigo De Castro, professor of International Relations at the CEU San Pablo University. Hence, the presence of Spain at the airport and port of Gibraltar is straining the signature of the agreement.
Emilio Sáenz-Francés, professor of International Relations at the Universidad Pontificia Comillas, holds the same opinion, who believes that “one could not live without an agreement with Ireland but one could live with an agreement without Gibraltar.” It cannot be ignored that in the case of Ireland there was a bloody terrorist group and if an agreement was not reached it was feared that a ghost from the past would awaken, something that does not happen with the case of the Rock. “We Spaniards give a lot of importance to Gibraltar from an economic and sentimental perspective,” points out the expert who assures that “the nature of the problem allows us to not be in such a hurry, although, with opacity, it has been delayed.”
Time is running out and there seems to be no rush to materialize an agreement. In this sense, diplomatic sources from Gibraltar assure that “the negotiation has not changed in the last two months, because there has been no government either in the Rock or in Spain.” That is to say, with a month and a half left until the end of 2023, nothing indicates that the year will close with the resolution of this long-awaited treaty.
The consequences of Brexit are beginning to leave their mark on citizens, especially on the other side of the fence and also in Campo de Gibraltar. Hence, the mayor of Algeciras and senator of the PP for Cádiz, José Ignacio Landaluce, asked this week the person who occupies the Ministry of Foreign Affairs “to set as one of his absolute priorities” a “solution” to “a problem in which the well-being of the people must be above all else”, referring to cross-border workers.
#logjam #agreement #Gibraltar