Walter Finch
A ‘ROGUE’ Spanish border officer started stamping the passports of Gibraltarians entering Spain again for an hour on Friday afternoon.
According to residents who crossed the border, the official was ‘under strict instructions from Madrid’, although it was reported that the order was rescinded around 2pm.
“They do it on a Friday because most Spanish workers don’t need to go to Gibraltar on the weekend,” one Gibraltarian complained.
“So my question is: why don’t they do it on Monday morning when Spanish workers go to work early in the morning?
“They are playing with us – we need to do the same to them.”
A statement from the Gibraltar government blamed ‘the same rogue officer deployed by the Spanish Policia Nacional at the frontier between Gibraltar and Spain.’
It follows on from a similar episode on another Friday last month, when the officer was held responsible for causing snaking border queues.
Gibraltar claimed he had ‘taken steps at the frontier to countermand the transitional provisions agreed between the governments of Spain, the United Kingdom, the European Union and Gibraltar, which enables both Spain and Gibraltar not to require individuals moving between Gibraltar and the Schengen area to show their passports if they are remaining in Gibraltar or Spain.’
It went on to state that it would ‘start reciprocating immediately’ if the order wasn’t stopped, although the timing on a Friday means that such measures would have a reduced impact at least initially.
“Once again, decisions of the type taken today by the rogue officer in question cause difficulties for ordinary people who need or wish to move from one side of the frontier to the other,” the government statement concluded.
It has been reported that the issue stems from the Spanish border chief, who wrote a letter to officials at the Immigration and Borders claiming that the transitional provisions to waive border controls with Gibraltar had no legal basis.
Algeciras newspaper Europa Sur claims that he demanded they ‘have legislation that justifies the procedure with the Gibraltarians and, if none is found, that signed and written instructions be given in which the zeal and the consideration with which the Schengen Borders Code must be applied to the aforementioned citizens of third countries be set out.’
Negotiations to seal a deal for Gibraltar’s border are ongoing between the territory, the UK, Spain and the EU – but so far without fruit.
