Eduardo Gonzalez/Luis Ayllón
The Spanish and British governments reached a last-minute agreement yesterday for Gibraltar to become part of the Schengen Zone, with Spain as “ultimate guarantor”, which will prevent the colony from becoming a “hard border” of the European Union and will allow the removal of the Fence that separates the Rock from La Linea de la Concepcion. Gibraltar’s Chief Minister, Fabian Picardo, welcomed this agreement, which will enable to “re-set ” the relationship with Spain in a more positive way.
“Today is the start of a new relationship”, said the Minister of Foreign Affairs, Arancha González Laya, during a press conference at the Palacio de la Moncloa to announce the agreement. “We are beginning a new stage. We have reached a principle agreement with the United Kingdom on Gibraltar that will allow us to eliminate barriers and move towards an area of shared prosperity”, said the President of the Government, Pedro Sánchez, on Twitter.
The commitment between Madrid and London came just hours before the deadline given by Spain to reach an agreement that would prevent Gibraltar from becoming the only territory with a hard-line Brexit. Gibraltar was expressly excluded from the agreement reached on 24 December by the United Kingdom and the EU on the relationship between the two parties following Britain’s departure from the Union, which finally materialised this past midnight.
The main consequences of yesterday’s agreement, according to González Laya, are that it will allow “the fence to be pulled down” and Spain to remain “responsible for” and “the ultimate guarantor” of the application of Schengen in Gibraltar, a task in which it will be “assisted” by the European Border and Coast Guard Agency (Frontex). However, the head of diplomacy did not wish to provide any further “technical” details on this point before appearing before the Congress of Deputies to explain the agreement.
One of the main stumbling blocks in the negotiations between Madrid and London was the United Kingdom’s radical opposition to the involvement of Spanish security forces in border control work at Gibraltar’s port and airport. Gibraltar’s entry into Schengen – proposed by Fabian Picardo and backed by Spain – would involve removing the fence at La Línea and moving the border to Gibraltar’s port and airport, which would become the new routes of entry from outside the EU.
However, it would also require the introduction of joint border control by the Spanish and British police forces. The United Kingdom opposed this possibility, which it interpreted as a manoeuvre by Spain to assert its claims to sovereignty over Gibraltar, and proposed that Frontex should take over this task. Spain rejected this option with the twofold argument that the control of the EU’s external borders is the responsibility of the Member States (in this case Spain, a member of Schengen) and that this agency does not have the power to control the borders itself and only performs this task as a support force for the states.
Imaginative” formula
Finally, according to reliable sources informed The Diplomat, the agreement between Madrid and London will allow the presence of Spanish agents, but “not only Spanish”, in the port and airport, with the assistance of Frontex, in a formula they described as “imaginative”, and which the minister will make known to the parliamentary groups, whose spokespersons she called yesterday afternoon to inform them of the principle of the agreement.
The formula, according to the same sources, would consist of the Gibraltarian police and Frontex agents controlling passengers in the terminal, who would then inform a Spanish agent of their decision. The latter would finally determine whether the passenger could enter Gibraltar or not, depending on whether he met the necessary requirements to enter Schengen. The Spanish agent would not be physically present at the end’s passport control but in other annexed premises, thus overcoming the United Kingdom’s reticence, for fear that Spain would take advantage of the presence of Spanish agents in its claims to the isthmus, whose sovereignty our country did not relinquish in the Treaty of Utrecht.
González Laya also stated yesterday that the principle of agreement reached yesterday by the two parties represents “the foundation of a future treaty between the EU and the United Kingdom regarding Gibraltar”. In fact, the 24 December agreement between Brussels and London also established that any decision on the Rock should have “the consent of Spain”.
Necessary unanimity in the European Council
Therefore, and based on this principle, the agreement between Madrid and London represents the Spanish Government’s consent to Gibraltar’s entry into Schengen, which has yet to be ratified, unanimously, by the European Council. This could be a problem, because there are several member countries that have so far been prevented from joining Schengen, such as Romania, Croatia and Bulgaria, which could be unhappy with giving the go-ahead for Gibraltar to be in this area of free movement, while they are not allowed to.
According to the minister, the agreement has already been sent to the European institutions so that they can draw up guidelines for negotiating the agreement on Gibraltar, which she hopes will be concluded within six months.
In the meantime, once the negotiations have been completed, the Fence will remain in place, although it is hoped that the passage through the fence will be smooth. In fact, the 10,000 Spanish workers who go to work every day in the British colony were already guaranteed that, although no agreement had been reached, after being registered, allowing them to enter and leave the Rock just by showing an identity card
Fabian Picardo
During a press conference, the head of the Gibraltarian Executive, Fabian Picardo, celebrated yesterday that the two parties have reached an agreement that will make it possible to avoid “the worst effects of a hard Brexit”, which does “not transgress Gibraltar’s position on sovereignty” and which will make it possible to “re-set our relationship with Spain and cast it in a more positive light going forward”.
“We are at the beginning of the creation of an area of shared prosperity”, said Picardo. “That is what we want to see, greater economic growth. We want to see greater cooperation. And we want to see greater prosperity become a material reality for the whole of Gibraltar and the whole of the region around us”, he added.
“Spain, as the neighbouring Schengen member state, will be responsible as regards the European Union for the implementation of Schengen. This will be managed by the introduction of a Frontex operation for the control of entry and exit points from the Schengen area at the Gibraltar entry points”, said Picardo.
“I want to expressly thank the President of the Spanish Government, Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez, for the approach he and his Government have adopted to this negotiation” and “I also want to, of course, expressly thank the Spanish Foreign Secretary, Arancha Gonzalez Laya for her work, her sensitivity and her own, very, very personal efforts in getting a mutually acceptable framework over the line, as well as the efforts of Spanish Secretary of State for Europe, Juan Gonzalez Barba”, he added..
For his part, the British Minister of Foreign Affairs, Dominic Raab, stated in a statement that the agreement, which had been reached “working side by side with the Chief Minister of Gibraltar and following intense discussions with the Spanish Government”, will establish “the basis for a separate treaty between the United Kingdom and the EU with regard to Gibraltar” and will make it possible to “mitigate the effects of the end of the Transition period in Gibraltar and, in particular, to ensure the fluidity of the border, which is clearly in the best interest of the people living on both sides”.
“We remain firm in our support for Gibraltar and its sovereignty. I thank Foreign Minister González Laya and her team for their positive and constructive approach. We have a warm and strong relationship with Spain and we look forward to building on this in 2021”, he added.
The Vice-President of the Andalusian Regional Government, Juan Marín, as well as the President of the Mancomunidad del Campo de Gibraltar, Juan Lozano, and several mayors of the area, whose municipalities depend on a fluid relationship with the Rock, expressed their satisfaction with the agreement.
