The Diplomat
The British Secretary of State for European Union Relations, Nick Thomas-Symonds, has announced that the agreement between the European Union and the United Kingdom on Gibraltar’s future status within the EU will be published “very soon,” but he did not specify dates or timelines for its ratification in the British Parliament.
“We are reaching the point where the treaty will be published very soon, and therefore everyone will be able to see its details,” Thomas-Symonds said this Thursday during a breakfast briefing organized in Madrid by New Economy Forum, in response to a question about when the text will be ratified in the UK Parliament.
This past Tuesday, February 17, the European Commission adopted its proposals for the signing, provisional application, and conclusion of the agreement between the European Union and the United Kingdom on Gibraltar.
The proposals will now be transmitted to the Council, the Commission said in a press release. The Council will then proceed with the necessary steps for the signing and conclusion of the agreement, and finally, the European Parliament must give its consent for ratification, in accordance with EU treaties. On February 3, the Minister of Foreign Affairs, José Manuel Albares, simply announced at a press conference that “the agreement has already reached the Council of the EU and is imminent to reach the European Parliament.”
The EU-UK agreement on Gibraltar will complete the legal framework for EU-UK relations established by the Trade and Cooperation Agreement. Gibraltar is not included within the scope of the EU-UK Trade and Cooperation Agreement, signed in 2020 and in force since 2021.
In mid-December, negotiators from the European Union and the United Kingdom successfully completed the drafting of the legal text of the treaty on Gibraltar’s future relationship with the EU after Brexit.
The two negotiating teams had been discussing the final text for months after the European Union (represented by European Commission Vice-President Maroš Šefčovič and Minister of Foreign Affairs José Manuel Albares) and the United Kingdom (represented by UK Foreign Secretary David Lammy and Chief Minister of Gibraltar Fabian Picardo) reached a “definitive” political agreement on “the fundamental aspects of the future Agreement between the European Union and the United Kingdom concerning Gibraltar” on June 11, 2025, in Brussels.
The Government of Gibraltar has already approved the Treaty for ratification, provided no changes are made to the meaning of the approved text during the statutory review. Once the final text is available, it will be submitted to the Parliament of Gibraltar as a motion subject to amendments for debate. Approval by the Parliament of Gibraltar will signal the United Kingdom to proceed with its own Treaty ratification procedures.