ARCHIVED - Spain and the United Kingdom reach agreement for Gibraltar to be included in Schengen area

This removes the need for a hard border between the British colony and Spanish mainland

One of the outstanding issues unresolved in the Brexit trade deal related to the question of the border between Spain and Gibraltar, and how the frontier controls would operate once the UK left the EU on 31st December.

This was finally cleared up at the “twelfth hour” on Thursday when a temporary agreement between Spain and the UK was announced, under which the British colony will become part of the Schengen area and will have border controls only at the airport and the port.

Spanish Minister for Foreign Affairs, Arancha González Laya, explained that the practical result of the outline agreement is that "the border fence will be demolished" and mobility with the colony will be "enormously" facilitated, the 271,000 inhabitants of the eight municipalities of Campo de Gibraltar ( Tarifa, Jimena de la Frontera, San Martín del Tesorillo, Castellar de la Frontera, San Roque, Los Barrios, La Línea de la Concepción and Algeciras) and the 33,000 of Gibraltar, permitted free movement between the British colony and Spanish mainland.

The principle of agreement, which will allow other policies and programs of the European Union to be applied to Gibraltar, such as those of fair competition in tax matters, assumes that Spain is the "ultimate responsible and guarantor" for the application of the Schengen border in Gibraltar, since The United Kingdom is not part of this free transit area. "We’re breaking down barriers to build an area of shared prosperity," said the minister, who considers that "it is a good agreement" that meets the aspirations of citizens because "it manages our interdependence and does so through shared responsibility", without resigning "to our inalienable principles" on sovereignty.

By this she is referring to the aspirations of the Spanish Government that the colony, which has been under British control for the last 300 years, should return to the control of Spain.

Agreement is for a transition period of four years
For an initial four-year period Gibraltar will have Schengen controls at the port and at the airport only with agents from the European agency Frontex assisting in these controls. The minister did not want to give more details about the principle of agreement, including whether Spanish agents would be part of these controls at the Schengen borders of Gibraltar.

After reaching this agreement, Spain will request the European Union to consolidate a treaty which González Laya expects to be ready within a period of six months. Meanwhile, "Schengen modalities will be used to make the controls at the gate more flexible.

Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez, said on Twitter that the principle of agreement "will allow us to eliminate barriers and move towards an area of prosperity." "We are starting a new stage", he wrote. British Prime Minister, Boris Johnson, also said on Twitter that he received "with enthusiasm" the principle of agreement reached with Spain on the future relationship of Gibraltar. Chief Minister of Gibraltar, Fabian Picardo, called it a "success" that will open up "a rainbow of opportunities" in the colony and the Campo de Gibraltar and that "will restart our relationship with Spain" to "project it in a more positive light in the future. " He stressed that negotiators have heard "the call of the 21st century" to seek benefits for generations for "decades if not centuries."

Satisfaction in the Campo de Gibraltar
For the president of the Commonwealth of Municipalities of Campo de Gibraltar, Juan Lozano, this Thursday has been "a historic day, which we will remember just like the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989. The mayor of La Línea de la Concepción (Cádiz), Juan Franco, a municipality that shares a border with Gibraltar, has celebrated it as a "historic" day because the residents on both sides of the Gate will have "the fluidity we have been asking for."

It had been feared that without an agreement, the thousands of day workers who live in the campo de Gibraltar but work in the many financial and gaming businesses based in the colony, would have been forced to endure long queues at border controls once the UK left the EU.