Walter Finch
SPAIN’S foreign minister has piled on the pressure on the UK to ‘say yes’ to the deal on offer over Gibraltar before new border controls come in in just five weeks.
“The proposed treaty provides for the inclusion of Gibraltar in the Schengen zone and freedom of movement for people and goods,” Jose Manuel Albares said after a meeting with Campo de Gibraltar mayors in Madrid.
But he warned: “It is the United Kingdom that has to decide whether it prefers that or, from November 10, the new border controls.”
On this date the European Union’s new Entry Exit System is purported to come into effect, bringing an abrupt halt to the current relaxed ‘wave through’ regime upon which Gibraltar relies.
The details of the treaty Spain and the EU have offered is still underwraps as the negotiations are ongoing, and will only be announced once or if they are agreed.
But if it is accepted, it will see Gibraltar incorporated into the Schengen zone and the current physical border fence removed.
“We have been negotiating this deal for many years,” Albares continued.
“I am the fourth foreign minister to sit at the table. It is time for the United Kingdom to say yes to an agreement that is balanced and generous and that we have put on the table a long time ago.”
But Chief Minister Fabian Picardo hit back, telling the Gibraltar Chronicle that the UK and Gibraltar had made their own ‘reasonable and well-balanced’ that Spain should accept or ‘condemn us all’ to the new border controls.
With both sides having laid out their stall, the chances of a rapprochement on one crucial issue looks dim, despite all the technical complexities that have reportedly been overcome.
Spain, which maintains a claim to Gibraltar against the will of its people, is thought to insist that if Gibraltar is to be part of the Schengen zone, Spanish uniformed and armed officers must be free to move throughout the territory in order to control the points of entry – namely Gibraltar’s airport and port.
Fabian Picardo has followed in the footsteps of a long line of chief ministers in flatly rejecting this outcome, having openly signalled that the territory will choose to continue without a treaty rather than give up its sovereignty.
It thus sets the stage for a game of chicken in which a no-deal that will damage the entire region looks the most likely outcome.
Albares said last week that his demands were ‘simply the application of the Schengen regulations as they are everywhere.’
“I see some Gibraltarian authorities very concerned about uniforms, I am not concerned about them,” he said.
“I simply want the application of the Schengen regulations as they are everywhere.
“And exactly the same for the freedom of goods. I do not give (to uniforms) more or less importance, but the Schengen area, wherever it is applied, has to be done uniformly.
“And, if it is extended to Gibraltar, it will have to work exactly the same as in the rest of that area.”
However, one potential reprieve is the possibility that the start date of the EES will be delayed, with European Commission officials refusing to rule it out to the Olive Press last week.
The negotiating teams are ‘in constant contact’, Albares added today.
