2023-06-28 02:20:38
Negotiations on Gibraltar, in limbo since Brexit left it out of the EU, are at a standstill and it now seems more difficult than ever to reach an agreement. The governor of La Roca, David Steel, accuses Spain of being responsible for the stagnation by having requested “a regulatory framework on the management of the airport that implies its Spanish jurisdiction”, something that he considers intolerable as it directly affects the question of sovereignty. . «In the 2020 New Year’s Eve Framework Agreement, the issue of sovereignty was left aside. Now Spain has reintroduced it,” the representative of the British Crown in Gibraltar stressed to The Times.
On New Year’s Eve 2020, three years ago, a few hours after the Brexit transition period ended, London and Madrid managed to close “in extremis” an agreement in principle to avoid strict controls on the only land border -along with that of Ireland – which now unites the United Kingdom with the European Union. 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.
Around 30,000 people cross the gate every day. Among them, 15,000 workers, of which 10,000 are Spaniards from 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 the “no deal” is always there.
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.
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 momentum would be achieved. necessary to resolve the matter of the Rock. But finally the white smoke did not arrive and the elections for July 23 only make things more complicated. According to The Times, in the United Kingdom there is concern that an eventual PP government with Vox could make the road difficult.
In the negotiations there is talk of “a zone 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 pact 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 Minister of Foreign Affairs, 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 airport of El Peñón, although this would have the support of the European border agency –Frontex– during a transitional period of four years. However, Gibraltar Governor David Steel now says the UK must ensure that the presence of Frontex officers at the border “is not stretched to sovereignty, that it does not go beyond what we can accept in terms of jurisdiction and control.” ». “Gibraltar’s importance is now greater than it has been for 40 years, since the end of the Cold War,” says Governor Steel. “With a resurgent Russia and an assertive China, its strategic importance as an entry point for the Atlantic and the Mediterranean is obvious,” he qualifies.
The Spanish Government considers that “the ball is in the United Kingdom’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 it is London and in particular the Gibraltar government that is responsible for the deadlock in the negotiations.
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