The Diplomat
The executive director of Frontex, Fabrice Leggeri, assures that “it would be an honour” for the European border control agency to take control of the external border with Gibraltar if Spain requests it, as the Minister of Foreign Affairs, European Union and Cooperation, José Manuel Albares, said at the end of July.
“It would be an honour if Spain, the United Kingdom, Gibraltar and the European Commission ask Frontex to take on this task or to support this type of task, it would be an honour for Frontex”, the Frenchman stressed in an interview with Europa Press.
Leggeri explained that this would involve controlling the entry and exit of citizens through the port and airport of Gibraltar, carrying out tasks such as checking identity documents or supervising visas in those cases where this is necessary.
“We know that Spain and also the UK have expressed a desire for the Frontex Permanent Corps to be able to assist at Gibraltar’s external border entry points and that means checking arrivals and departures at the port and airport,” he said.
The executive director of the European border control agency pointed out that “everyone is working, including the (European) Commission, to find the legal architecture to make this possible”.
On 22 July, after a meeting in London with his British counterpart Dominic Raab, Albares stated that Spain’s intention is to request the assistance of Frontex agents to control the external borders with Gibraltar.
Two days earlier, the European Commission had presented a proposal for a mandate to negotiate with the United Kingdom the end of the fence in Gibraltar, as agreed between Madrid and London last December, although it makes it clear that the Rock will remain outside the Schengen border-free area, with controls at the airport and ports.
According to this mandate, which still has to be approved before negotiations can begin, this task would in principle fall to the Spanish authorities, something that both the British government and the Gibraltar authorities reject.
The head of Spanish diplomacy, however, insisted that Spain’s will is to ask Frontex to take over border control and justified the decision by the need to “create a climate of trust” in the Peon because “there are many interests at stake”.
The PP’s deputy spokesman in the Foreign Affairs Committee, Pablo Hispán, asked on his Twitter account if Albares is really going to accept this, and added: “Spain will be the only country in the world not to manage its borders. First it renounced co-sovereignty over the Rock and now it is renouncing responsibility for its own border”.
